Two researchers receive the Göran Gustafsson prize in medicine

The Foundation selects researchers in the medical field who show outstanding promise. In 2026, Verónica Docent at the Department of Immunology, Genetic and Pathology (IGP), receives the three-year SEK 1,250,000 award, while Anzhelika Vorobyeva, also at IGP, receives the SEK 1,250,000 one-year award.

For Verónica Rendo, receiving the three-year award is a natural continuation, although not a given. Last year, she received the one-year award.

“The Göran Gustafsson Foundation has played a pivotal role in supporting my development as an independent researcher. Receiving the 1-year prize in 2025 allowed me to recruit a doctoral student, which strengthened our ongoing work and opened the door to new projects. Receiving the 3-year prize now feels like a meaningful recognition of those initial efforts. More importantly, it provides us with the stability to further expand the lab and pursue more ambitious questions. I’m genuinely grateful for the foundation’s trust in our ideas,” she says.

Individualised treatment for childhood cancer

Cancer remains the most common disease-related cause of death among children in Sweden and Europe, and so-called high-grade gliomas, a malignant form of brain tumour, are among the most aggressive. This is the form of cancer that Verónica and her group are working to address.

“These tumours are particularly difficult to treat, not only because of their biology, but also because many drugs can’t reach the brain. Our research focuses on a protein called p53, which helps cells respond to stress, such as DNA damage caused by radiation. We’ve been studying a compound that activates p53, and encouragingly, we’ve shown in clinical trials that it can reach brain tumours and have an effect.

Although these are positive advances, about half the work remains. Half of all high-grade gliomas cannot retain the protein.

“This raises an important question: How do we treat the other half of patients? We believe these tumours have different vulnerabilities, or “molecular properties”, that could be targeted in other ways. To explore this, we plan to grow tumour cells from patient biopsies in the lab and label them with molecular ‘barcodes’. This allows us to track how individual cells respond to treatment over time. In the long run, our goal is to identify better, more personalised treatment strategies for children affected by these devastating tumours,” Verónica concludes.

Enabling key recruitment

The award from the Göran Gustafsson Foundation will now be used for precisely the purposes Verónica Rendo describes. A first step will be recruitment.

“This prize will support the recruitment of a dedicated lab member who can drive the experiments aimed at understanding why some tumour cells respond to treatment, while others become resistant. This includes expanding our work with patient-derived tumour cells and applying the molecular ‘barcoding’, as I mentioned earlier,” says Verónica Rendo.

Recipients of both the three-year and one-year awards will receive their prizes at a ceremony later in the spring.

“I can’t wait! I am very excited about the ceremony and look forward to seeing everyone from the Foundation again, as well as the other researchers who, like me, have reached this stage in their research careers.”

Robin Widing