Belgian research couple rewarded for their work on incurable diseases
The Gagna & Van Heck International Prize for incurable diseases is awarded for the first time to a Belgian team.
Anabelle Decottignies, a cancer researcher at the de Duve Institute at UCLouvain, is interested in telomeres, "small bits of chromosomes that play a very important role in cancer," she explains. Her award-winning work has focused on bone and muscle tumors in pediatric cancers.
"One of the main objectives of our laboratory is to find new targeted therapies that could replace chemotherapy in the treatment of cancers" explains Anabelle Decottignies.
The Oswald Vander Veken Prize is awarded every three years for an original contribution focusing on locomotor system tumors, their causes, prevention, diagnosis and / or treatment.
To fight bacteria, certain cells in our body produce a kind of bleach. But bacteria have found subterfuges to resist this attack. Camille Goemans uncovered one of them: the bacterial protein CnoX which protects bacteria from bleach and repairs damaged bacterial proteins. This discovery, which opens up new avenues to strengthen our defenses against bacteria, is now rewarded with the Eugène Yourassowsky Prize from the FNRS.
In a video (in french) produced by the FNRS, the young researcher recalls her joy of having obtained this prize and the opportunities it opens for her scientific career:
" How it feels to receive an award like this?It makes me very cheerful! » External recognition, money to invest in your career (conferences, training, lab) and visibility: Camille Goemans lists the advantages of the Eugène Yourassowsky Prize.
The Eugène Yourassowsky Prize rewards a doctoral thesis carried out in the field of medical microbiology and infectious diseases.