Sara García Gil received the first “Matilde Reyes Malpica” award from the Avenzoar Pharmaceutical Foundation for the best scientific paper.

On October 28, the Avenzoar Pharmaceutical Foundation awards ceremony took place at the Faculty of Pharmacy in Seville. Among the awardees was doctoral student Sara García Gil, a member of the Molecular and Applied Pharmacology research group, led by Professor Elena Mª Talero Barrientos, from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Seville

Sara García received the first “Matilde Reyes Malpica” award for the author of the best scientific work, which is part of her Doctoral Thesis. The article, published in the journal Antioxidants, is titled “Photoprotective Effects of Two New Morin-Schiff Base Derivatives on UVB-Irradiated HaCaT Cells” and was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Mario Gómez Hurtado from the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo (Mexico).

Given that the harmful effects of exposure to ultraviolet radiation are widely known, with skin cancer being the most serious, this research has focused on the search for new ingredients of natural sources that act as adjuvants to current sunscreens. In this regard, morin is a flavonoid found in fruits like guava and has demonstrated interesting antioxidant and photoprotective properties. For this reason, in the presented work, its structure was chemically modified to obtain two new, more stable derivatives: morin oxime and morin semicarbazone. The results of this study have shown that these two new compounds increase morin’s photoprotective activity in a model of HaCaT keratinocytes exposed to ultraviolet B radiation through antioxidant and anti-inflammatory mechanisms. Therefore, these findings suggest that morin derivatives could be used as adjuvants to current photoprotectors, with the added benefit of being eco-friendly.