IBMC researchers among recipients of 2014 Pfizer Awards

The team led by Hélder Maiato is one of the three winners of this year’s Pfizer Awards in the category of Basic Research. Their work, which is now being acknowledged with the prize worth 20 thousand Euros, determined that the dividing cells’ central region is able to measure the position of chromosomes, thus establishing a new paradigm in the control of cell division.

This mechanism delays one of the final steps in cell division – the formation of new nuclei – to ensure that the chromosomes are correctly divided between the daughter cells.

To PI Hélder Maiato, “understanding cell division allows us to unravel a process common and essential to all living organisms, which has strong implications for human health”.

Along with Hélder Maiato's group, a research team from Instituto de Medicina Molecular (IMM) was also granted the prize in the same category (Basic Research), whereas a team studying leukemia, from IMM as well, was awarded the prize within the category of Clinical Research.

The judging panel for the 2014 edition of the Pfizer Awards was handed 72 entries to evaluate – 51 of Basic Research and 21 of Clinical Research. The Pfizer Award is widely known as the earliest distinction to be granted to biomedical research in Portugal, having been giving away prizes to outstanding research for 58 years now with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and the Lisbon’s Society of Medical Sciences as patrons.

The award ceremony will be graced with the presence of Leonor Parreira, secretary of State of Science.