Danish Cancer Society honours young Health researcher
Assistant Professor Naiara Santana-Codina from the Department of Biomedicine has been awarded one of the Danish Cancer Society's two Junior Researcher Awards for her ground-breaking work within pancreatic cancer treatment.
The future treatment of pancreatic cancer could be found by using already approved drugs. At any rate that is the goal of Naiara Santana-Codina who, together with her research group, focuses on reusing drugs that have already been approved to treat other diseases, including their potential to treat cancer.
The young researcher has also identified two signalling pathways that play a role in how pancreatic cancer cells utilise nutrients. These pathways are so important for cancer cells that they will die if the pathways are blocked. She has also shown which substances can block the signalling pathways.
"The challenge with the drugs is that the cancer cells become resistant over time. That's why I'm researching how we can combine other cancer drugs to kill the resistant pancreatic cancer cells," says Naiara Santana-Codina and continues:
"My goal is for my research to benefit patients and lead to new treatment options. This is also one of the things I love most about working at Aarhus University: there’s a close relationship with the hospital and thus with patients. I think this makes a lot of sense in my work," she says.
The Danish Cancer Society's Junior Research Award comes with a cash prize of DKK 100,000, and besides Naiara Santana-Codina, it has been awarded to Troels Holz Borch, PhD from the National Center for Cancer Immune Therapy (CCIT-DK) at Herlev Hospital.
Contact
Assistant Professor Naiara Santana-Codina
Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University
Email: nsc@biomed.au.dk
This coverage is based on press material from the Danish Cancer Society.