IPO-Porto Gastric Cancer Prize awarded to i3S researcher

Researcher Nair Lopes, from the Differentiation & Cancer group, recently won the first edition of the “IPO-Porto Gastric Cancer Prize”, an annual award that aims to encourage and reward scientific research in the area of gastric adenocarcinoma.

Titled “A panel of intestinal differentiation markers (CDX2, GPA33, and LI-cadherin) identifies gastric cancer patients with favourable prognosis”, the award-winning scientific article was considered to be excellent by the jury, which was unanimous in its choice. Nair Lopes, first author of the paper published in the journal Gastric Cancer, explains that in the work relevant biomarkers were identified in the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. Using “multiplex fluorescence-based immunohistochemistry techniques combined with digital image analysis and chromogen immunohistochemistry”, the authors described “an intestinal differentiation panel in gastric cancer composed of the markers CDX2, GPA33 and LI-cadherin and observed that protein expression reduced or negative intestinal differentiation panel identifies gastric cancer patients with particularly low levels of survival”.

This award was created by the Porto IPO due to the high incidence of gastric cancer in Portugal, especially in the North of the country, and as a way of recognizing the “central role of research in the prevention of gastric cancer”. The research in question, explained Mário Dinis Ribeiro, director of the Gastroenterology Service of the IPO in Porto, “reflects, in a work of excellence, the individualization of prognosis through the determination of biomarkers”.

The work was developed in the “Differentiation & Cancer” group, led by Raquel Almeida, and was supervised by researcher Leonor David. The applications were judged by a jury composed of the President of the IPO of Porto, Rui Henrique, the Director of the Gastroenterology Service of the IPO of Porto, Mário Dinis Ribeiro, by the Director of the Pathological Anatomy Service of CHSU João, Fátima Carneiro, by the Director of Department of Gastroenterology at Hospital de Santa Maria - CHULN, Rui Marinho and by the Director of the Department of Gastroenterology at Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra, Pedro Figueiredo.