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i3S project on breast cancer wins Dr. Mario Fonseca prize

Researcher Sandra Tavares won the first edition of the Dr Mário Fonseca Prize, awarded by the Lousada City Council and the company Soma Coordenadas. Worth 20,000 euros, this prize will allow the scientist to test a new chemotherapy approach to effectively target the most aggressive cells of triple-negative breast cancer, with fewer side effects.

Triple-negative breast cancer is identified in around 20% of patients diagnosed with breast cancer. It is the most aggressive and most difficult type of breast cancer to treat and, precisely for this reason, it is also the most deadly. The vast majority of patients diagnosed with this type of cancer are treated with the same chemotherapy regimen, but only half respond positively to the treatment, although all suffer from severe side effects. Until very recently, there was no way to differentiate these women, meaning it was impossible to know who would respond to treatment and who would not. However, the researcher has recently managed to identify a difference between women who will respond and those who will not benefit from chemotherapy.

“Our ultimate goal is to use the criteria we discovered and propose to pre-select patients for taxane-based therapy, to prevent patients who do not respond to more traditional chemotherapy from suffering side effects and wasting time and health with a useless therapy,” stresses Sandra Tavares.

According to the i3S researcher, this research focuses on a type of triple-negative breast cancer that responds positively to chemotherapy and aims to “develop a different form of treatment that prevents the formation of metastases, that eliminates the most aggressive cells that are capable of spreading outside the tumour, and that does so with fewer side effects". To this end, she adds, “we will use organoids, which are pieces of patient tumours that we can use in the laboratory, and a less conventional animal model, the chicken egg".

For faster implementation in clinical practice, says Sandra Tavares, who is part of the Cytoskeletal Regulation & Cancer group, led by Florence Janody, “we have established a strategic alliance between Portugal (IPO-Porto and Centro Hospitalar Gaia-Espinho) and the Netherlands (Centro Hospitalar Universitário).

For the researcher, receiving the Dr Mário Fonseca Award was, above all, an honour: “It is the first time that a municipality has realised the importance of investing in Science. And being the first person to receive it is a very special pleasure. Science is a community effort, a necessity and, as the recent past has shown, it will never be a luxury. This award is so necessary and so innovative that while on the one hand we are happy that such an award finally exists, at the same time we think, ‘how is this the first?’” I hope that other municipalities and private entities will look at this award and be inspired to take the same step”.

About the Dr Mário Fonseca Award

The Dr Mário Fonseca Award was created in 2024 by the municipality of Lousada, with the aim of stimulating scientific research and in honour of the illustrious doctor from Lousada, recognised as the “People’s Doctor”, who dedicated his entire life to medicine and clinical support for the most disadvantaged, and died in 2012 from cancer.

With a base value of 20,000 euros, of which 10,000 are awarded by the Lousada City Council and the other 10,000 euros by the company Soma Coordenadas, this Award’s main objectives are to recognise projects in the area of Health Sciences with a one-year implementation period that can promote a substantial improvement in scientific knowledge in the effective fight against various pathologies and contribute to the recognition of Lousada as a territory that promotes good training, academic and research practices in the area of health. In this first edition, 43 applications were submitted.

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