Hi there! For the coming weeks, our blog will be dedicated to our Young SIOP Award winners!
Please meet Maria Cuadrado Vilanova, YI from Spain, in her own words.
My name is Maria Cuadrado Vilanova and I am a graduate student at the SJD Pediatric Cancer Center
Barcelona, Spain. I received my Bachelor‘s degree in Biotechnology from the University of Vic (2017)
and my Master’s degree in Molecular Biotechnology from the University of Barcelona (2018).
I am currently pursuing a PhD in Biomedical Sciences under the supervision of Dr. Angel M.
Carcaboso. I will graduate in October 2022 with two first-author papers, one published recently
and the other submitted for revision.
I have a wide background in translational cancer research, with focus on pediatric solid tumors.
My specific research has been focused on retinoblastoma. The two main goals of my PhD project
were (i) to identify new potential therapeutic targets in the tumor microenvironment of this disease,
and (ii) to develop sensitive analytical methods to follow-up treatment response in retinoblastoma
patients.
As a final result of the first goal, I identified two immunosuppressive soluble factors secreted
by retinoblastomas that promote the polarization of tumor-associated macrophages towards
the protumoral M2-like state. This work was published in The Journal of Pathology
(Cuadrado-Vilanova et al., 2022). We are honored that the SIOP scientific board has granted this
study with a SIOP Young Investigator Award 2022.
The results of the second goal, led to the development of an easy, affordable, and objective
follow-up technique to assess treatment response of intraocular retinoblastoma tumors, which until
now was a clinical unmet need. This work is included in the manuscript entitled
“Follow-up of intraocular retinoblastoma through the quantitative analysis of conserved
nuclear DNA sequences in aqueous humor from patients” (Cuadrado-Vilanova et al.,
submitted 06/16/2022).
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