PINT OF SCIENCE FESTIVAL
13-15 MAY 2024
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Future Frontiers in Health: Tailoring Cancer Care and Innovating Malaria Prevention
Dive into an evening where science fiction meets medical reality at Pint of Science! "Future Frontiers in Health" is your ticket to a world where cancer gets a personalized smackdown, and malaria faces off against its most unconventional challenger yet. Imagine a future where your treatment plan is as unique as your DNA, and malaria's latest adversary is something you'd never expect. Buckle up for a fantastic journey through the innovative twists and turns of modern medicine.
Selective Strike: Innovations in Tumor-Specific Therapies
Pieter Van der Veken
Professor
University of Antwerp
Even the most advanced cancer treatments boil down to the same principle: stopping cancer cells by killing them. Cancer cells, however, are eerily similar to healthy human cells. So how can you make sure that a therapy only attacks tumors? And how can the rest of your body escape from cancer therapy unscathed and live happily ever after? This talk will follow cancer therapies on their way through the human body. It will delve into strategies to hook up drugs to tumors and keep them inside. We will end with a dip into the curses and blessings of personalized cancer medicine. Oh…and bear in mind: size matters!
Malaria vs. Europe, the match we still win
Dalia Díaz
PhD Student
Institute for Tropical Medicine
Imagine I tell you I’m about this 1% people in Europe having a rare mutation on the red blood cells that (partially) protects me from being infected by the malaria parasite. Am I the chosen one? a weirdo? or does this have an evolutionary meaning? After this finding, I found myself in a wining position against this tricky, smart and hidden parasite, which is now the main focus of my research. The malaria disease mainly affects the tropical regions, but we still have some spare cases in Europe, and actually it was a lot more present in the past. I’ll see you in the talk to get to know the full story.
