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Indian origin researcher-led team wins BIAL award
The award promoted by BIAL foundation seeks to recognise a work in biomedicine of exceptional quality and scientific relevance published in the last ten years.
Varun Venkataramani / Image: @VarunVenkatara2
A team of researchers, led by Varun Venkataramani, has won the third edition of the BIAL award in Biomedicine, along with a prize of 300,000 euros (US$ 324,244)
The award, promoted by the BIAL foundation, seeks to recognize exceptional work in biomedicine with promising quality and scientific relevance published over the last ten years.
Venkataramani (first author), Frank Winkler, and Thomas Kuner (senior co-authors) from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, were recognised for their study, titled, “Glutamatergic synaptic input to glioma cells drives brain tumor progression,” published in Nature in 2019.
The study represents a breakthrough research critical for understanding human cancer, specifically glioblastomas, a very aggressive type of brain tumor with an average survival time of just 1.5 years with state-of-the-art treatment.
Authors showed how glioblastomas and other incurable gliomas can integrate themselves into the function of the brain, and that input from healthy brain cells, normally used in functions such as thinking and memory, drives the progression of gliomas.
This is possible by the formation of synapses between neurons and cancer cells, a statement added. The award-winning research also provides a new explanation for why epilepsy and tumor progression are often observed together: epilepsy may be a cause, rather than a consequence of the tumor progression.
Venkataramani serves as a group leader in the department of functional neuroanatomy. Additionally, he is a responsible scientist in the subgroup ‘Neuron-glioma synapses for glioma progression and therapy resistance’ in the laboratory of professor Frank Winkler (DKFZ Heidelberg, University Hospital Heidelberg).
He did his MD thesis on developing novel methods for superresolution microscopy to characterize synapses. During his PhD, Venkataramani discovered and characterized synaptic contacts on glioma cells under the supervision of professor Winkler and Kuner. Currently, he is working on the role of synaptic contacts in brain tumor networks and other cancer entities.
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