Ângela Fernandes awarded with the 2025 Maria de Sousa Prize for tumor neoantigen research

Exciting news!

Ângela Fernandes, a post-doctoral researcher at Pinho’s Lab, has been awarded with one of the prestigious 2025 Maria de Sousa grants. Created in honor of the late physician and scientist Maria de Sousa, these are jointly awarded by the Bial Foundation and the Portuguese Medical Association to support young Portuguese investigators working in the health sciences.

Ângela’s project will focus on neoantigen glycosylation in colorectal cancer – a type of cancer that remains particularly resistant to current immunotherapies. By studying how these modifications influence the ability of T cells to recognize and respond to tumor neoantigens, this project will aim to advance novel vaccine-based strategies that target neoantigen glycosylation.

The work will build on Pinho’s Lab expertise in glycobiology and immunobiology and will be carried in collaboration with Javier Rojo in the University of Sevilla. Together, Pinho’s Lab and Javier Rojo’s research group will employ a multidisciplinary approach to understand how neoantigen glycosylation can be harnessed to improve current therapeutic strategies in colorectal cancer.