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Everyone knows the Nobel Prize for Medicine. The general public is less familiar with the Baillet Latour Award. This is a prestigious international award awarded in Belgium since 1979.
Today this award is twofold: 250,000 euros reward a health theme. This year it is about “metabolic” diseases: this generic term includes all diseases (such as diabetes, arterial hypertension or obesity) that interrupt the normal so-called “metabolic” transformation of sugars, fats and proteins For energy and waste disposal.
A second prize of 150,000 euros for 3 years (with a possible extension of 2 years, therefore potentially 750,000 euros) rewards a researcher from a university or a university hospital is awarded to a young group leader to finance a research project on the subject of the year.
And the winners are …
British Professor Andrew Hattersley receives the 2020 Health Award: He conducted most of the studies that characterized diabetes and clinical symptoms in patients with a genetic form of diabetes. With his team he founded a genetics laboratory in Exeter recognized as a world leader in diagnosis and research on monogenic diabetes. They described 24 new genetic causes of diabetes. Thanks to his research, he was able to show that these patients could replace their insulin injections with tablets (sulphonylurea) and improve blood sugar control. All patients worldwide diagnosed before 6 months have also received free genetic testing.
Diet and cancer
Professor Sarah-Maria Fendt receives the “Grant for medical research 2020” for her research on the formation of tumor metastases. Since 2013 he is Principal Investigator at the VIB Center for Cancer Biology and Assistant Professor of Oncology at KU Leuven. Sarah’s lab is specifically interested in understanding cancer metabolism during the formation of metastases and during altered physiology of the whole body. His research found that metastatic cancer cells needed specific small molecules called metabolites and that metastasis formation could be prevented by inhibiting the use of these metabolites. The Baillet Latour Award will allow him to extend his research to metabolites found in foods and to study how fats and other nutrients promote the formation of metastases.
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