The second edition of the Medical Research Day (Journée de la Recherche Médicale) held on 26^th October 2016, aiming to stimulate the exchange between researchers, clinicians, students and the broad public, was again a big success. At the closing of this eventful day, Dr Jérôme Paggetti and Dr Etienne Moussay from LIH’s Department of Oncology received an award for their outstanding collaborative research work on blood cancer.

The Medical Research Day was held for the second consecutive year at the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg (CHL). This event was jointly organised by CHL, LIH, the Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication of the University of Luxembourg, and the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine, with support from the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) and sponsors.

An audience of over 200 people, mainly pupils and students, participated to the various workshops, presentations and mini-conferences. Numerous members of LIH staff were among the speakers and workshop facilitators, presenting clinical research and its professions as well as research topics in the fields of sports medicine, cardiovascular diseases, immuno-allergology and oncology. ‘Making medical research tangible to the general public is one of our priorities’, states Dr Anna Chioti, Director of LIH’s Department of Population Health. ‘We especially aim at emphasising that everyone can be an actor in medical research, be it on a professional or on a personal basis’, she points out.

The event was closed with an awards ceremony honouring healthcare professionals and researchers for outstanding work performed in 2015. From the four awards, the Award for Translational Medical Research was given to Dr Jérôme Paggetti and Dr Etienne Moussay working at the Laboratory of Experimental Cancer Research at LIH’s Department of Oncology. They have made an important contribution to medical research by deciphering how cancer cells in chronic lymphatic leukaemia (CLL), by the secretion of small vesicles named exosomes, change surrounding cells to their advantage to ensure their survival and proliferation. The results have led to a better understanding of how the tumour microenvironment is manipulated and may pave the way for the development of new treatment strategies for CLL.

The awarded project was supported by a CORE grant from the FNR and the FNRS-Télévie. It was a collaborative work involving LIH’s Genomics and Proteomics Research Unit, Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg, CHL and two internationally renowned cancer research centres from abroad.