Catarina Pinto, a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico, has been awarded the European Nuclear Education Network PhD Prize (ENEN PhD Prize) for her research work in nuclear medicine. The award ceremony took place on 11 September, at the Garching Science Congress Centre in Munich, Germany, during the 5th edition of the European Congress of Medical Physics.
Catarina Pinto’s research work, titled ‘3D Cancer Models for the Theranostic Evaluation of 64CuCl2’, is being carried out at the Center for Nuclear Sciences and Technologies (C2TN), at Técnico Loures and focuses on the use of three-dimensional (3D) cancer cell models for the pre-clinical evaluation of radiopharmaceuticals. The most commonly used models for the pre-clinical evaluation of drugs, particularly radiopharmaceuticals, are two-dimensional, in which the cells grow in an unnatural way. As a result, the data obtained in vitro in the laboratory differs from the results obtained in vivo in animal models and later in patients, should the compounds reach the clinical trial stage. According to Catarina Pinto, ‘by using three-dimensional models that can better reproduce what happens in our bodies, we aim to study and better understand the response mechanisms and the effects of radiotherapy treatments with radiopharmaceuticals on tumour cells’. ‘This innovative approach, which offers greater biological complexity compared to conventional (2D) models, not only improves the prediction of treatment response but also contributes to reducing the use of laboratory animals’, she added.
The use of 3D cancer models opens the door to developing more precise treatment strategies, thus contributing to more effective therapies. In addition, as research progresses, it is hoped that these models will become fundamental in the pre-clinical evaluation of new drugs, particularly radiopharmaceuticals, contributing to the development of new therapies for cancer patients. This work was carried out in partnership with the Institut de Recherche en Cancérologie de Montpellier (IRCM), in France, and the MD Anderson Cancer Center (United States of America), as part of the ‘UT Austin Portugal’ research project coordinated by researcher Filipa Mendes. The project also included the collaboration of other researchers from Técnico and the Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS) at the University of Coimbra.
The competition involved 15 PhD students from different European Universities in the final phase, of which only 4 received the respective prize. Catarina Pinto was the only Portuguese to participate in the final phase. ‘It’s very gratifying to have won the ENEN prize, as it recognises the importance of my work in nuclear medicine’.
Established in 2006, the ‘ENEN PhD Event & Prize 2024’ award ceremony is held annually to promote and support the work of young researchers in Europe in nuclear sciences.
