SPEDM recognizes thyroid cancer research

Researchers Elisabete Teixeira and Nuno Rocha de Jesus, from the Cancer Signaling and Metabolism group, were recently distinguished by the Portuguese Society of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism (SPEDM) for their work in the area of thyroid cancer. The prizes - which correspond to two scholarships worth a total of 12,500 euros - were awarded during the Portuguese Endocrinology Congress, which took place at the beginning of February.

The project “Genetics of Familial Non-Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma – Investigation of a family”, proposed by researcher Elisabete Teixeira, was awarded a research grant awarded by SPEDM worth 7,500 euros. The team, which also includes researchers Paula Soares (supervisor), Cláudia Fernandes and Miguel Melo, will focus on hereditary thyroid cancer, which represents around ten percent of all thyroid cancer cases.

Elisabete Teixeira's objective is to validate the mutation of an enzyme, called USP42, as a cause of familial non-medullary thyroid carcinoma. This project follows on from previous research carried out in the Cancer Signaling and Metabolism group, in which the researcher is integrated, which allowed the identification of this germline mutation in a Romanian family of three.

The role of antidiabetic drugs in the treatment of thyroid cancer

The project presented by researcher Nuno Rocha de Jesus, in turn, received a Prof. Edward Limbert/SPEDM/MERCK grant, worth five thousand euros, to study the role of antidiabetic drugs in the treatment of differentiated thyroid carcinoma. This type of tumor has been growing over the last three decades, not only due to the increase in the detection of clinically silent tumors resulting from an increasing number of thyroid imaging tests, but also, according to some studies, for environmental reasons.

Therapeutic strategies vary between removal surgery and active surveillance, but there is still no effective method to predict cases in which tumor evolution will be more aggressive, with local invasion and distant metastasis and eventual loss of response to iodine.

Based on the fact that there is an antidiabetic drug that can have an inhibitory effect on the growth and migration of differentiated thyroid carcinoma cells, the i3S team, which also includes researchers Valdemar Máximo, Paula Soares, Patrícia Tavares, Maria João Oliveira, and Mariana Gonçalves, will evaluate the therapeutic potential of this medicine and other antidiabetic drugs.