- The PEPTOC project, financed with 150,000 euros through the ERC Proof of Concept program, will be carried out at the CICA of the University of A Coruña during the next 18 months.
- The collaboration with Ramón y Cajal researcher, Juan Fafián Labora, explores a new therapeutic route with fewer side effects.
A Coruña, July 15, 2024.- Researcher Elena Pazos Chantrero, from the Interdisciplinary Center for Chemistry and Biology (CICA) of the University of A Coruña (UDC), has been selected to receive funding of 150,000 euros to develop a research project focused on ovarian cancer. The initiative, called PEPTOC, will be carried out for 18 months and has the collaboration of researcher Juan Fafián Labora, from the Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine Research Group (TCMR) of the same center.
The PEPTOC project is funded through the ERC Proof of Concept program, an initiative of the European Research Council (ERC) aimed at research staff who already have projects funded by this organization – such as Elena Pazos -, with the aim of exploring the commercial and innovative potential of a result generated during the development of the main project.
The research is based on preliminary results obtained in studies with cell lines, in which a family of peptides with high selectivity was identified, capable of eliminating chemotherapy-resistant tumor cells without affecting healthy cells. The aim now is to validate these findings in a more complex biological environment and study their viability for long-term clinical development.
Responsible science for safer therapies
The research team emphasizes that the project is in an early stage of development. Although the initial results are promising, it is too early to talk about clinical applications. Therefore, they insist on the importance of communicating these advances rigorously, avoiding generating unrealistic expectations.
In addition to experimental validation, the project contemplates the intellectual protection of the results and the analysis of their potential for transfer to future therapeutic applications.
Elena Pazos Chantrero: Galician talent with international projection
Born in Marín (Pontevedra), Elena Pazos holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Santiago de Compostela. Her research career includes stays at centers of excellence such as Trinity College in Dublin (Ireland), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University, also in Illinois, (United States) where she worked on the development of peptide nanostructures for medical applications.
In 2017, she joined the UDC as an InTalent researcher, where she founded the QuimBio group, focused on the design of chemical tools for biomedical applications. In 2019, she received an ERC Starting Grant from the ERC and was a Ramón y Cajal researcher until this year. This new project consolidates her trajectory as a reference in biomedical research in Galicia.
CICA-UDC: interdisciplinary science at the service of health
CICA is a research center of the University of A Coruña, listed as a center of excellence in the Cigus Network of the Xunta de Galicia, which is committed to collaboration between scientific disciplines to address complex challenges in biomedicine, nanoscience and pollution, food and health. The PEPTOC project is an example of this philosophy, by combining the experience in biomedical chemistry of the QuimBio group with the knowledge in cell biology and experimental models of the TCMR group, led by Juan Fafián Labora, Ramón y Cajal researcher.
This synergy allows us to move towards innovative solutions with a potential impact on improving people’s quality of life.
Photo: Researchers Elena Pazos Chantrero and Juan Fafián Labora, at the facilities of the Interdisciplinary Center for Chemistry and Biology (CICA) of the University of A Coruña.
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UDC Communication Office