Nuno Bernardes, researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB) at Instituto Superior Técnico, has been distinguished in the 11th edition of the Gilead Génese Programme, an initiative led by Gilead Sciences that supports innovative projects in health research and community intervention in Portugal.
His project, RAPID-CTCs – Maximizing the ex vivo expansion of circulating tumor cells with agitation-based platforms towards personalized oncology, aims to develop new strategies to expand and study circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in the laboratory.
CTCs are rare cancer cells that circulate in the bloodstream and can give rise to metastases in distant organs. Understanding how these cells grow and respond to therapies is considered a major challenge in cancer research and could play an important role in improving treatment decisions for patients.
“Circulating tumour cells can act as seeds for metastatic tumours in distant organs and are key to understanding how metastasis develops,” explains Nuno Bernardes.
The project focuses particularly on triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive and highly heterogeneous disease in which metastasis accounts for a significant share of cancer-related deaths. Despite their clinical relevance, the use of circulating tumour cells in research and clinical practice remains limited due to the difficulty of detecting and expanding them in laboratory conditions.
Through the RAPID-CTCs project, the research team aims to develop innovative culture strategies that enable the expansion and characterisation of these cells outside the body. By making it possible to study their behaviour and response to therapies in greater detail, the project seeks to advance cancer research and contribute to more effective and personalised treatment approaches.
For Nuno Bernardes, the recognition highlights the potential of bioengineering approaches to address key challenges in oncology and reinforces the work developed at Técnico in the field of biomedical and translational research.
In this year’s edition of the Gilead Génese Programme, 47 projects from across Portugal were submitted, including 26 research projects and 21 community intervention initiatives. From these applications, 10 projects were selected — four in the research category and six in community intervention — with a total of €300,000 in funding to support initiatives addressing HIV, chronic viral hepatitis, and oncology.