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.