Researchers Neus Martínez, from the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), and Pilar Navarro, from the Barcelona Biomedical Research Institute (IIBB-CSIC), received last night the Vanguardia award from Science in an event that took place in La Pedrera.
The work of these scientists, which identified a biomarker in blood that makes it possible to predict the presence of pancreatic cancer before symptoms appear, was the most voted by the readers of La Vanguardia and the jury made up of experts such as the advance most important female-led scientist of the year 2022 in Spain. The award reached its 12th edition in 2023 and is a joint initiative of La Vanguardia and the Catalunya-La Pedrera Foundation.
"Thanks to the visibility that winning the Vanguardia de la Ciència award has given us, we have been able to launch a study to validate our biomarker", announced Martínez and Navarro. In fact, they explained shortly before the event began, they have received interest from a donor to continue funding their research.
The research, whose conclusions were published in the journal eBioMedicine, opens the door to improving the prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer. It is a rare but very aggressive type of tumor, the incidence of which is increasing, and which is expected to become the third cause of death from cancer in the coming years, behind lung and colon tumors .
In this regard, Martínez and Navarro conducted a study with patients from the Mar i Clínic hospitals in Barcelona and Ramón y Cajal in Madrid, in which they managed to identify a biomarker, the soluble AXL protein. When it is in high amounts in the blood it predicts pancreatic cancer accurately.
Martínez and Navarro received the award from the Minister of Research and Universities, Joaquim Nadal, who highlighted the excellent level of the Catalan research system, especially in basic research, which is "above the European average ". The councilor emphasized the importance, precisely, of the most basic science and the generation of knowledge as an indispensable pillar to be able to move on to applied research. "We cannot do transfer and applied research if we do not have solid knowledge," he emphasized.
The president of the Catalunya-La Pedrera Foundation, Germán Ramón-Cortés, also agreed to value the excellence of the research carried out in Catalonia, both from hospitals and research centers and universities: "We must remember that together we all contribute to a slightly better world", he said.
For his part, the director of La Vanguardia, Jordi Juan, emphasized that the great success of the award is to highlight the work of researchers and expressed hope that the commitment of La Vanguardia and the Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera with this award also serves to inspire vocations in girls and young women.
In addition to Navarro and Martínez, the other two finalists of the Vanguardia de la Ciència awards also participated in the event, Inés Marín, researcher at the Institut de Recerca Biomédica (IRB) in Barcelona, and Cátia Monteiro, who when to do the award-winning study, she researched at the National Center for Oncological Research (CNIO) and is currently a researcher at MSD pharmaceuticals. They were also chosen in second and third place by voters and a jury of experts, who shared the results of their scientific articles.
Biologist Inés Marín, researcher at the Institut de Recerca Biomédica de Barcelona (IRB), in second place, has discovered how to improve the efficiency of chemotherapy using senescent cells, cells that are damaged but not they die, but remain in a sort of zombie state, and are very effective at alerting the immune system to act on the tumor.
For her part, the Portuguese biologist Cátia Monteiro, who was the third most voted, has identified a biomarker that makes it possible to identify which patients with brain metastases will be resistant to radiotherapy, which is the most used treatment for these tumors. This makes it possible to identify patients who will respond and those who will not. And for the latter, the researcher has found a drug that makes them sensitive to radiotherapy again.
