Fighting cancer in Luxembourg: Legs Kanning Prize 2022

National award granted to Dr Pablo Elias Morande of the Tumour Stroma Interactions Group

• Tumor Stroma Interactions
• Department of Cancer Research
• Donation

On Tuesday, January 17th 2023, Dr Pablo Morande, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Senior Post-doctoral Fellow from the Tumour Stroma Interactions (TSI) group at the Department of Cancer Research at the LIH, and Scientific Researcher from the IMEX-CONICET Institute in Argentina, received the “Legs Kanning Prize” from the association “Action Lions Vaincre le Cancer”. The prize rewards the scientific achievements of researchers who are highly involved in cancer research in Luxembourg.

This year, the Legs Kanning committee granted the 2022 prize to Dr Morande, in recognition of his excellent research achievements. The prize, which amounts to EUR 7,500, was conferred during the 16^th annual “Legs Kanning” conference, which took place at the headquarters of the “Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL)”.

Following an introductory speech by Mr Cédric Weisse, Head of Private Banking at BIL, and Prof Marc Diederich, president of the “Action Lions Vaincre la Cancer”, Dr Morande took the floor to present his research in a talk entitled “Evolution et Cancer: un défi pour concevoir de nouvelles therapies” (in English: “Evolution and cancer: a challenge for the design of novel therapies”).

In his presentation, Dr Morande covered some of the newest evolutionary approaches that are currently being applied to understand cancer progression, together with the challenges that these perspectives represent for future therapeutic applications. Dr Morande also linked different aspects of cancer evolution dynamics to present his past research achievements and reviewed some of the ongoing projects by the TSI group at the LIH. He emphasized the importance of conceiving, not only in theory but in practice, the phenomenon of cancer relapse as a Darwinian process of selection and adaptation of tumour cells and explained some of the main research questions that are being developed in reference centres around the world that study evolution and cancer.

I know how important this award is for the cancer research community in Luxembourg and I am most honoured and thankful to be selected for it this year. In my talk, I decided to discuss in simple terms some fundamental aspects of biological evolution, to explain how we can apply these principles to understand cancer development and response to therapy. I think that evolutionary approaches are worth further practical exploration in our search of solutions for the problem of cancer

said Dr Morande.

Congratulations to Dr Morande and the entire TSI Group!