María José Blanco, professor at School of Pharmacy at the University of Navarra, received from the hands of Queen Letizia one of the grants awarded by the Scientific Foundation of the association Spanish Foundation Against Cancer (AECC). This is the financial aid Bhavnani, the only one granted to a specificproject in childhood cancer, endowed with 150,000 euros and financed by the Canary Islands-Hindu financier Ram Bhavnani, president of the Bank of Madrid.

Dr. Blanco is at the head of a research that seeks to obtain new therapeutic nanosystems that can be administered orally and allow effective therapy against pediatric osteosarcoma, the main cause of death by disease in Spaniards aged 0-14 years. In this way, according to the expert, "thanks to the contribution of the AECC, through many anonymous people, we can continue to make progress in the search for more effective and less toxic treatments for cancer patients, and in this specific case for children, improving their quality of life".

In the administration of the treatment, the researcher explains,"drugs that slow down cell proliferation, currently used for the treatment of osteosarcoma (such as methotrexate or adriamycin) and a promising antitumor drug (edelfosine) with its vectorization in lipid nanotransporters,will be combined".

The group researcher belongs to the Center for Biomedical Engineering (CBIO) of the University of Navarra and is formed by Dr. Ana Patiño and Dr. Luis Sierrasesúmaga, from the department of Pediatrics of the University of Navarra, and Dr. Sergio Arana and Dr. Maite Mujika, from the Center for Biomedical Engineering (CBIO), associated to the University of Navarra. Clínica Universidad de Navarra (CUN), and Drs. Sergio Arana and Maite Mujika, from the Centro de programs of study e Investigaciones Técnicas (CEIT), associated to the University of Navarra. The CBIO is a recently created center with a team multidisciplinary with a high Degree of specialization and experience in projects related to Engineering and Biomedicine such as Telemedicine, Nanotechnology or Systems Biology. It is led by the School of Engineering of the University of Navarra (TECNUN), the CUN and CEIT.

The ceremony was held on the 17th at the Victoria Eugenia theater in San Sebastian. It also awarded a financial aid to another project of the University of Navarra led by Dr. Luis Montuenga on personalized therapies for lung cancer.