Biochemical Journal Young Investigator Award winner

Christine Dufès

Christine Dufès was the winner of the Biochemical Journal Young Investigator Award at the 13th Tenovus Scotland Symposium. Christine was appointed as a lecturer at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow) in 2006 and currently supervises a research group composed of PhD students. Previous to this appointment, she obtained a PhD with a European Label in 2002, from the University of Poitiers (France) and spent 4 years as a post doctoral researcher at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Laboratories, University of Glasgow, under the supervision of Dr Schätzlein and Professor Uchegbu. Her research interests include the targeted delivery of drugs and therapeutic genes to cancer cells and the brain. During her PhD (supervised by Professor Muller), Christine delivered with success the neuropeptide vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) to the brain. During her post doctoral work, Christine demonstrated that the intravenous administration of a novel gene medicine leads to regression of subcutaneous tumours in long-term surviving mice. The current prize was awarded for her Tenovus Scotland-funded work, which demonstrated that a new tumour-targeted gene therapeutic system leads to tumour disappearance after intravenous administration to mice, without any signs of toxicity.

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