Marta Vicente Rodríguez — PhD in Pharmacology with an
International mention; professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical and Health
Sciences at the School of Pharmacy; and deputy director of the Institute for
the Study of Addiction — has been honoured with the 'Mario Martín Velamazán Pharmacy Research Award’for the best doctoral thesis from the Schools of Pharmacy in the
Community of Madrid for 2023, in the XIII edition of the competition. The award
was granted by the Asociación Española
de Farmacéuticos and the Universidad
CEU San Pablo.
In her thesis, titled ‘Involvement of Pleiotrophin and Midkine in
the modulation of the neurotoxic and reinforcing effects of drugs of abuse:
psychostimulants and alcohol’ supervised by Carmen Pérez (vice-dean of the School of Pharmacy and professor of
Pharmacology) and Gonzalo Herradón
(dean of the School of Pharmacy and professor of Pharmacology), Dr Vicente
Rodríguez has studied addiction mechanisms, neurotoxicity, and
neuroinflammation, contributing to the understanding of substance use disorders
and possible therapeutic interventions.
This study demonstrates
that the genetic inactivation of PTN or MK confers more vulnerability to the
rewarding effects of alcohol. The importance of PTN in regulating the rewarding
effects of alcohol was confirmed by the absence of addictive behaviour induced
by this drug in mice that overexpress PTN in the brain. This contributes to the
understanding of the molecular and signalling mechanisms behind the effects of
alcohol on the brain, which may have implications in the treatment of
alcohol-related disorders.
The results of Dr.
Vicente Rodríguez's thesis laid the groundwork for the design and synthesis of
a new compound with pharmacological potential in the treatment of substance
addiction, representing an advancement in understanding the consequences of
abuse and addiction for the brain and proposing the PTN/MK/RPTPß/? signalling pathway as a potential therapeutic target for
substance addiction treatment, which is a significant step forward in the field
of neuropharmacology.
Professor Vicente
Rodríguez has conducted national and international research, and while working
on her doctoral thesis, she completed two international stays, in the United
Kingdom, at Dr. Alexis Bailey's
laboratory at the University of Surrey, and in Chicago at Dr. Amy W. Lasek's laboratory at the
University of Illinois. She also worked in the Neuroimaging Department at
King's College London (London, UK), where she made significant contributions as
a postdoctoral researcher to the molecular and cellular characterization of the
18kDa translocator protein (TSPO) for detecting neuroinflammation in humans.
Among her various research initiatives, two international projects stand out,
both funded by GlaxoSmithKline and
the first one within the international
consortium NIMA-Wellcome Trust Consortium for the Neuroimmunology of Mood
Disorders and Alzheimer's Disease. Since February 2020, she has been a
Pharmacology professor at Universidad CEU San Pablo, where she combines
teaching and research duties.
Currently, she is
collaborating with King's College London
and GlaxoSmithKline on a project
focused on searching for new pharmacological targets for the development of new
PET radioligands to detect neuroinflammation in various pathologies. She has
also participated in 5 competitive projects funded by public administrations, 3
private projects, and has published 26 scientific articles in peer-reviewed
journals, of which 12 articles originated from her doctoral thesis.