The Zendal Group has announced their award winners this November 16th on a gala celebrated in Vigo, which had more than 250 participants. This is the IV edition of these awards, and their goal is to bring visibility, promote and recognize new research projects within the field of human health (awarded with 40.000€) and animal health (awarded with 25.000€). This year 95 works were presented, originating from up to 7 nationalities, all of them of high quality research.

The use of bacteriophages to combat bacterial resistance

The failure of antibiotics is currently one of the biggest worries within the human health sector. This problem is created not only due to antibiotic resistant bacteria, but also due to persistand and resillient pathogens, which results a considerable amount of infections becoming hard to treat.

Among the new therapeutic effords being explored, the use of bacteriophages, also known as “phages” (viruses that kill bacteria) are currently being widely researched as a powerful therapeutic strategy against bacterial pathogens.

It is within this frame that the winning human health category project is awarded, which has obtained the job lead by María del Mar Tomás, coordinated by the Grupo de Investigación Traslacional y Multidisciplinar (MicroTM) of the Instituto de Investigación Biómédica de A Coruña (INIBIC) at the Hospital A Coruña.

Based on the development of a diverse range of phagotherapy research lines, having the bacterial antipersistance stragegy as a main defense mechanism of bacteria against phage infection, the main goals were focused on improving the efficacy of the natural lithic phages trough their combination with potenciating treatmets, and the development of synthetic phages that can carry proteins of interest that can improve their action.

In order to carry on with the different research lines, this team from the Coruña hospital will collaborate with important national and international research groups on the project ‘La Medicina de Precisión contra la resistencia a los antimicrobianos (MEPRAM)’, with the end goal being obtaining innovative results, which will be pattented and/or published on prestigious international magazines, aswell as being presented in congresses of scientific societies such as the Sociedad Española de Enfermedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica (SEIMC), and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID)”.

A vaccine to fight against the most devastating bacterial infection in bees

In the animal health category, the award was given to the project of the american iinovation center Dalan Animal Health (Georgia, USA), who is developing the world’s first vaccine against bee foulbrood, the most devastating bacterial infection within this species.

This vaccine candidate protects against Paenibacillus larvae, the agent that causes this devastating bacterial disease on honey bees. The only way to contain their propagation is to destroy the affected colonies, as well as the use of antibiotics, which results in important economic losses for the beekeepers. Such is that this innovative proposal predicts a positive impact for the protection of this key species for the survival of plenty of ecosystems.

Dalan has provided a safe and non-chemical path for the protection of this vital species for the upkeep of food supplies. Currently a large scale field trial is being performed with 400 commercial hives. They will be the object of tight scrutiny over the next 2 years in order to evaluate the effects of the vaccine in important evaluation criteria on the field, such as honey flow, winter survival rates and disease resistance.

A trajectory dedicated to the fight against cancer

On top of that, the tribute award was given, with the recognition of Dr. Immaculada Ibáñez, for her important trajectory within research against cancer.

This doctor in molecular biology, who studied at UCM (Madrid), is currently director of the Terapias Experimentales y Nuevos Biomarcadores en cáncer de IdiPAZ group, and the leader of the Cancer Epigenetics laboratory from the Instituto de Genética Médica y Molecular –INGEMM- , located in the Hospital Universitario La Paz.

After a predoctoral stay in Bristol and six years of postdoctoral stays in different US centers, in 2005 she reincorporated to the Spanish research system within the CSIC, the subsequent being Miguel Servet in the IdiPAZ.

She has developed 27 research projects, 23 of those as a Lead Researcher, inventor of 6 patents, she is considered to be one of the most influential women in Spain within the clinical and research field.

Maximum reduction of plastic presence

Lastly, the Zendal Group has awarded the accésit to the best sustainablity iniciative, to the team of scientist lead by Victor Guallar, from the Barcelona Supercomputing Cencer, the CSIC and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid for the development of an enzyme with the capability of degrading micro and nano PET particles. An innovative solution framed within the search for tools in order to face the micro and nanoplastics.

The obtained results indicate that the newly developed protein has a degradation efficacy in micro and nano PET plasticvs between 5 and 10 times higher than the ones currently available on the market, and all of this at room temperature, agasint the 70º needed by other compounds in order to make the plastic more maleable, which comes with an increased CO2 emmision and limits their applicability.

In addition, two variants of this protein were designed, which generate different products: one of the variants decomposes PET particles in an exhaustive manner, which makes it adequate for treatment plants; while the other one creates the needed initial components needed for recycling.

The gala, which was opened by the CEO of the group Andrés Fernández, and closed by the health advisor Julio García Comesaña, counted with the interventions of Martín Barreiro, a physics and meteorology expert, and of Nerea Irigoyen, virologist in Cambridge University. From different perspectives, both speakers boarded the climate emergency and its influence in human and animal health, a transversal point in this edition of the awards.

Original article: Ganadores de los IV Premios Zendal: Una vacuna protectora para las abejas y un proyecto innovador contra la resistencia bacteriana (16/11/2023)

For BIOGA, it is a priority to promote intersectoral collaboration between entities and to power networking activities, both national and international. If you want to know more about us, please click the following link.