Cancer research Two cancer researchers from Switzerland and Germany receive awards

Two cancer researchers from Switzerland and Germany have been honored with the Swiss Bridge Award 2024. The prize money of 250,000 Swiss francs each is intended to help support the treatment of cancer with immunotherapies.

This year's competition for the Swiss Bridge Foundation's cancer research prize is dedicated to supporting early-stage clinical trials, the foundation announced on Tuesday. The aim of early studies is to test drugs or therapies on patients with incurable cancers for the first time. 36 young researchers from Europe applied for the prize.

Tobias Weiss from the University Hospital Zurich investigated a treatment approach for glioblastoma, the most common and most aggressive form of brain tumor in adults. Weiss and his team take immune cells from the blood of the person to be treated and modify them in such a way that they can recognize and attack tumour cells, wrote Swiss Bridge.

The second prize winner is Juliane Walz from the University of Tübingen. She and her team researched a bispecific antibody. This is designed in such a way that it binds specifically to two different proteins that are located on different cell types, the report continued. They hope that this dual effect will enable them to effectively combat tumors.

SDA