Pinedo prize for Belgian cancer specialist

amsterdam - The Belgian cancer specialist Martine Piccart will receive the Bob Pinedo Cancer Care Award from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) this year. Piccart (65) receives the biennial prize for her 'leading scientific contributions to the treatment of breast cancer and to clinical cancer research.'

She discovered, among other things, that women who receive chemotherapy for the treatment of an aggressive form of breast cancer benefit from receiving the drug trastuzumab at the same time. This reduces the chance of returning the disease and possible death from this type of breast cancer by about 40 percent.

The prize consists of a sum of 100,000 euros to be spent on research. Piccart also gets a sculpture. The prize is named after Bob Pinedo, the internationally renowned Dutch cancer researcher.