Ana Lázaro Research Grant Awards €70,000 to Pediatric Brain Cancer Research Project

João Conde and Isabel Fernandes, researchers at NOVA Medical School, have won the third edition of the Ana Lázaro – Cancer Research Grant, worth €70,000, with PediCancerGel, a new intranasal therapeutic platform for the treatment of pediatric brain cancer.

The project addresses one of the greatest challenges in treating medulloblastoma— the most common malignant brain tumour in children: delivering medication to the brain without the toxic side effects associated with current therapies. Today, treatment combines surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, which require high drug doses to cross the blood-brain barrier, exposing the developing brains of children to neurocognitive and endocrine side effects that often persist throughout their lives.

PediCancerGel offers an alternative: an intranasal nanogel that gradually releases drug-loaded nanoparticles, exploiting the olfactory and trigeminal pathways to bypass the blood-brain barrier. In preclinical studies, this approach has already demonstrated effective brain biodistribution and significant inhibition of tumour growth, while reducing treatment exposure compared with conventional chemotherapy.

"This project proposes an innovative approach to delivering treatment to the brain in a more effective, targeted, and safer way, without the consequences associated with radiotherapy and chemotherapy. It has the potential to represent a major step forward for children and their families," explains João Conde.

"Medulloblastoma remains one of the most difficult pediatric tumours to treat. The intranasal route could enable a less invasive method of administration while providing a more targeted therapeutic effect within the brain," says Isabel Fernandes.

The project was selected from among 10 applications, with the jury unanimously highlighting the outstanding scientific quality of the proposals submitted. With the €70,000 grant, the research team will now move forward with regulatory-grade preclinical validation and the translational planning required to advance towards the first clinical trials in children.

The Ana Lázaro – Cancer Research Grant is an initiative of NOVA Medical School that supports projects capable of accelerating the translation of laboratory research into clinical practice. It is funded by the family of Spanish dancer and choreographer Ana Lázaro, who dedicated part of her legacy to cancer research. The programme has a total budget of €210,000, distributed between 2024 and 2026, funding one project each year. Previous editions recognised a project by Ana Félix and Susana Silva on biomarkers for uterine carcinosarcoma, and a project by Raffaella Gozzelino and Sofia Braga on new therapies for triple-negative breast cancer in African women.