Catarina Marreiros' PhD work, carried out in the Functional Biochemistry and Proteomics (FBP) group at CCMAR, has been awarded the BINOV 2024 Prize in the Pharmaceutical Intervention category by the Portuguese Pharmaceutical Association.
The award ceremony took place at the new headquarters of the Portuguese Pharmaceutical Association in Lisbon. This award recognises her innovative contribution to research into cardiovascular risk markers.
Catarina began her academic career at the University of the Algarve, where she completed her Master's degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2017. Currently in the fourth year of her PhD in Biomedical Sciences, Catarina is focussing on the development of a biomarker for assessing the risk of cardiovascular disease, the Gla-Rich Protein (GRP), a vitamin K-dependent protein. This protein has shown potential as an indicator of cardiovascular risk, but its physiological levels in humans remain poorly explored.
With the support of this award, the group intends to create a biobank of sera from Portuguese donors.
This resource will be essential for establishing a reference range for GRP levels in healthy populations, a crucial step towards validating this biomarker as a diagnostic tool in the future.
Cardiovascular diseases continue to be the leading cause of death worldwide. This project will enable significant advances in diagnosis and risk prediction, reducing the impact of these diseases on our society and the National Health System,’ Catarina shared.
At CCMAR, we are proud to have Catarina Marreiros on our team and congratulate her on this achievement, which highlights the excellence of the research carried out at the centre and its impact on the scientific community and public health at a global level.
