World Cancer Day - 4 February 2021

João Conde Lab - Cancer Nanomedicine
I Am a scientist AND I Will create knowledge!

Society continuously fights serious and complex diseases. Cancer has a tremendous harmful impact on the patient, but also on the whole of society, as well as on social and health systems.
Cancer therapies are increasingly effective, however it is extremely necessary to develop therapies that are more specific and selective.
Nanotechnology can make a difference here and bring solutions. Nanomaterials and biomaterials are more and more used in medicine, in particular for diagnostics and therapy. For example, two vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 use nanoparticles to deliver RNA that will fight covid-19.
In cancer, Nanotechnology is a growing field with the potential to combat this disease in a differentiated way, using intelligent and targeted platforms that mediate highly selective therapies within the tumor microenvironment.
The team led by João Conde, at CEDOC-NMS, is focused on updating the way we see and treat cancer, finding solutions to real biomedical problems and developing smart materials to beat cancer.

Learn more: João Conde Lab

António Jacinto Lab - Tissue Repair and Inflamation
I Am a scientist AND I Will create knowledge!

More than 50% of breast cancer patients selected for conventional neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) will not respond to this treatment and may even develop more severe forms of the disease.
To direct these patients to more efficient treatments, avoiding their exposure to high doses of toxicity without a clear benefit, Guadalupe Cabral's team, at António Jacinto's laboratory at CEDOC-NMS, has been working on new predictive biomarkers for this treatment.
Given the role of the immune system in the development of tumors and in their resistance to treatments, these researchers focus their investigation on the immune cells present in the microenvironment of breast tumors and in the blood of patients, pre-treatment. This team discovered two biomarkers, with immunological setting, capable of predicting which patients will truly benefit from NACT.
In parallel, since the therapeutic alternatives to NACT are very limited, these researchers are also developing innovative therapeutic strategies to offer patients to whom NACT is not adequate. Hence, using 3D models, which include the immune cells of these specific patients, they will explore how to modify those cells, so that they acquire characteristics similar to those found in the immune cells of patients who respond positively to NACT, becoming equally able to contribute to tumor elimination, together with the drugs that are part of NACT therapy, improving treatment efficacy.

Learn more: António Jacinto Lab