Events
Pulido Valente Science Prize 2009 distinguishes Research in Oncology carried out at the IMM
Institute of Molecular Medicine Unit of Communication and Training
ucom@fm.ul.pt
The researcher Ana Patrícia da Silva received the Pulido Valente Science Prize 2009 for work that identified a mechanism through which leukaemia developed in human beings. The results of this study open up new possibilities for therapy for a certain type of leukaemia, T leukaemia, which affect specific cells in our immune system (T cells, which are white globules).
The work was carried out in the Cancer Biology Unit of the Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM) and was published in the prestigious magazine Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The award ceremony took place at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education on the 19th of February, with the presence of the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Mariano Gago.
The award-winning work, entitled “PTEN posttranslational inactivation and hyperactivation of the PI3K/Akt pathway sustain primary T cell leukaemia viability”, focused on the study of the PTEN protein, which acts inside human cells as an obstacle to the development of tumours. The problem arises when the PTEN is prevented from functioning.
Up until the publication of the award-winning study it was thought that PTEN inactivation took place essentially on the level of genes; that is, that genetic mutations led to the production of dysfunctional PTEN, which permitted the advance of tumours.
What the researchers showed in this award-winning work is that even in cells where PTEN production is normal, protein inactivation may occur due to the action of another protein, called CK2.
The researchers studied leukaemia cells taken from patients with T leukaemia and saw that in these cells the CK2 chemically modifies normal PTEN, adding a phosphate group to it. They also saw that this chemical modification leads to PTEN inactivation. The study went further, and registered that in these leukaemia cells there is an increase in oxygen radicals, which does not take place in normal cells and which also contributes to PTEN inactivation.
Future studies may involve the application of the knowledge now generated in the treatment of T leukaemia, namely through the use of pharmacological CK2 inhibitors in order to induce the death of malign T cells without affecting patients’ normal cells.
Ana Silva is currently a researcher at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. She was recently granted a PhD by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (FMUL), she graduated in Microbial Biology and Genetics at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and did her degree training period at the Department of Neurosciences of the Babraham Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Ana Silva carried out her PhD project at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, under the orientation of Doctor João T. Barata, with whom she continues to work.
The Pulido Valente Science Prize intends to reward the best work published in the field of biomedical sciences carried out in a Portuguese laboratory by a researcher under the age of 35.
ucom@fm.ul.pt
The researcher Ana Patrícia da Silva received the Pulido Valente Science Prize 2009 for work that identified a mechanism through which leukaemia developed in human beings. The results of this study open up new possibilities for therapy for a certain type of leukaemia, T leukaemia, which affect specific cells in our immune system (T cells, which are white globules).
The work was carried out in the Cancer Biology Unit of the Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM) and was published in the prestigious magazine Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The award ceremony took place at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education on the 19th of February, with the presence of the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Mariano Gago.
The award-winning work, entitled “PTEN posttranslational inactivation and hyperactivation of the PI3K/Akt pathway sustain primary T cell leukaemia viability”, focused on the study of the PTEN protein, which acts inside human cells as an obstacle to the development of tumours. The problem arises when the PTEN is prevented from functioning.
Up until the publication of the award-winning study it was thought that PTEN inactivation took place essentially on the level of genes; that is, that genetic mutations led to the production of dysfunctional PTEN, which permitted the advance of tumours.
What the researchers showed in this award-winning work is that even in cells where PTEN production is normal, protein inactivation may occur due to the action of another protein, called CK2.
The researchers studied leukaemia cells taken from patients with T leukaemia and saw that in these cells the CK2 chemically modifies normal PTEN, adding a phosphate group to it. They also saw that this chemical modification leads to PTEN inactivation. The study went further, and registered that in these leukaemia cells there is an increase in oxygen radicals, which does not take place in normal cells and which also contributes to PTEN inactivation.
Future studies may involve the application of the knowledge now generated in the treatment of T leukaemia, namely through the use of pharmacological CK2 inhibitors in order to induce the death of malign T cells without affecting patients’ normal cells.
Ana Silva is currently a researcher at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. She was recently granted a PhD by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (FMUL), she graduated in Microbial Biology and Genetics at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and did her degree training period at the Department of Neurosciences of the Babraham Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Ana Silva carried out her PhD project at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, under the orientation of Doctor João T. Barata, with whom she continues to work.
The Pulido Valente Science Prize intends to reward the best work published in the field of biomedical sciences carried out in a Portuguese laboratory by a researcher under the age of 35.