Professor of Forensic Medicine at USC and Director of the Galician Public Foundation for Xenomic Medicine, Ángel Carracedo, awarded for his career
VIGO, 10 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
A project for the control of multidrug-resistant bacteria, a canine vaccine against leishmaniasis and the One Health platform were the awarded initiatives at the 3rd edition of the ‘International Zendal Awards’ organized by the Galician biotechnology group.
This Thursday, the company held the awards ceremony in Vigo, which was attended by, among others, the first vice president of Xunta and Minister of Economy, Industry and Innovation, Francisco Conde, as well as the CEO of Zendal, Andres Fernandez.
On this occasion the company decided to award three different prizes. In the human health category, the award went to a project developed by the Institute of Integrative Systems Biology of the University of Valencia, led by researcher Pilar Domingo Calap.
Domingo herself explained that this initiative seeks to eliminate bacteria through the use of viruses. These viruses would attack the elements of the bacteria that protect them from antibiotics, thus letting these drugs do their job.
The researcher pointed out that the project is already in the phase of producing the first viruses to help fight cystic fibrosis, which, as she said, “is a serious health problem that prevents transplanting patients who suffer from it.
For its award, which represents a € 40,000 prize, Zendal highlighted that the misuse of antibiotics has favored the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogenic bacteria, so the search for alternatives has highlighted these viruses called phages, as a “tool. biomedical of great interest “. “The reason is that their specificity allows them to be personalized treatments, with few side effects and environmentally safe,” added the company.
ANIMAL CATEGORY
For its part, in the animal health category in this third edition, the prize, endowed with 25,000 euros, went to the vaccine project against canine leishmaniasis developed by the Vaccines and Molecular Parasitology Group of the Margarita Salas Biological Research Center of the Superior Council of Scientific Research, led by Professor Vicente Larraga.
Zendal pointed out that the risks of zoonoses (diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans) have become a major concern of the health sector, for which this project has been awarded the development of a vaccine free of antibiotic resistance genes and non-replicative, which showed high levels of protection against disease caused by an intracellular parasite.
This Thursday, the Zendal Group also awarded the second special award to the One Health platform, in a new category that seeks to recognize research and actions from a global health perspective.
The jury selected One Health as it is a platform that brings together more than 140 entities from different fields and sectors that requires a broad approach to health, as in a globalized world everything is increasingly interrelated.
The objectives of the platform are to promote the One Health movement at the state level, establish a line of dialogue with all those key decision-making institutions, promote scenarios that facilitate interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration, and prepare consensus documents on specific issues that are taken into strategic consideration. Their work is considered essential to promote new research with a vision that integrates all perspectives on health.
The president of One Health, Maite Martín, thanked Zendal for this recognition and appreciated the platform, which aims to influence health policies so that they take health into account as something general, related not only to people, but with the animals and the environment.
ANGELO CARRACEDO
In the Career Tribute category, the jury recognized the figure of Dr. Ángel Carracedo, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and Director of the Galician Public Foundation for Xenomic Medicine, and coordinator of the Xenomic Medicine Group , world reference in the area of Forensic Medicine.
With a long professional career, Dr. Carracedo has published 12 books and 550 articles in international journals, including articles in Nature, Science, NatureGenetics, as well as leading journals in medical genetics, cancer and forensics.
He is part of several scientific societies of international importance and, recently, he was appointed full member of the Galician Academy of Medicine and Surgery.
For its part, Zendal wanted to highlight all the projects nominated for the awards it presented today. Thus, more than 35 initiatives competed in the human health category, as well as nearly 15 in the field of animal health.
These included solutions for developing probiotics as a dietary supplement for acne treatment, treatments for detecting prostate cancer or for detecting and delaying Alzheimer’s, among many others.
