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Dr. Éva Borbély: My award can be a positive example for women in science

December 14, 2024

Dr. Éva Borbély, associate professor at the UPMS, has been awarded the prestigious L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science award for her research into the links between chronic pain and central nervous system diseases, which is hoped to lead to the development of new drugs. We spoke to the researcher about the significance of her work and the “women-friendly” spirit of her department.

 

Written by Miklós Stemler

 

Dr. Éva Borbély, associate professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy, follows a noble tradition by receiving the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science award, as several women researchers of the Medical School have received it in recent years. In addition, several of the previous winners from Pécs are involved in the same field of research, which is a good indication of the quality and importance of the work carried out at the department.

“As far as I know, Professor Dóra Reglődi was the first person to receive this award at our School, and later two of my mentors, Professor Zsuzsanna Helyes and Katalin Sándor, were also awarded, which makes it all the more an honour for me. Of course, it is a great feeling to be chosen from among the many women researchers working in Hungary, but the media coverage the award has received is even more important for me, which hopefully sends a message to young women that it is worth choosing or staying in a scientific career,” says Éva Borbély.

Her example is certainly a good one to follow, especially because she has been involved in long-running research that has produced significant results. Both Zsuzsanna Helyes and Katalin Sándor won the For Women in Science award for their scientific work in pain research, and Éva Borbély joined this work back when she was a student.

“We started studying pharmacy in the third year, and my instructor was Professor Helyes, whose lectures and enthusiasm captivated me so much that I really wanted to do my undergraduate research work with her. She was very enthusiastic about it, and so during my studies, I started working in 2007 as a pain researcher in the working group originally founded by Professor János Szolcsányi. I loved it so much that soon I could not even imagine a different career,” recalls the now associate professor researcher.

Where pathologies and research connect

In the years since then, Éva Borbély has turned her attention from the peripheral nervous system to its central terminals and connections and is currently researching the relationship between central nervous system diseases and pathologies causing chronic pain. It is well known that these diseases often co-occur with chronic pain, but the reason for this is still unknown.

“Typical neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are typically associated with the onset of mood disorders, even changes in pain perception and chronic pain, and the onset of feeling different kinds of pain is more common in old age. For our part, we would like to know what might be behind the accumulation of these diseases and symptoms in old age: whether the same areas of the brain are activated in these cases, or the activation of a specific brain area triggers this process. Our work focuses on neuropeptides, which are present in large quantities in the peripheral nervous system and in the central nervous system, and our primary goal is to discover their »fine-tuning« functions, i.e. which brain areas they are located in for different pathologies, how they change, and what receptors and target molecules they have, so that we may influence them and develop new drugs,” says Éva Borbély, summarising her research.

She emphasised that this work is also of great therapeutic importance, as patients currently have to take many different medications to alleviate various symptoms, many of which have serious side effects. However, if it were possible to identify the areas of the brain where the different symptoms and their causes are linked, it would be possible to significantly reduce the amount of drugs and develop more effective ones, as the currently available drug therapies are often very ineffective.

When stress does not only cause mental pain

This could bring huge breakthroughs in the treatment and understanding of neurodegenerative diseases and chronic pain. Examining the underlying causes of chronic pain is also of paramount importance at the international level because it will help understand the links between, for example, stress, which is now considered a worldwide “epidemic”, and pain.

There is still a lot to be done in this area. Éva Borbély cited the example of fibromyalgia, a disorder that often goes undiagnosed, although its symptoms, namely stress-induced chronic pain and fatigue cast a shadow over the lives of many people, mostly women. However, diagnosis is not only made difficult by the still poorly understood nature of the disease but also by attitudes towards central nervous system disorders, according to Éva Borbély.

“In Hungary, there is basically a kind of distancing from diseases affecting the central nervous system, we do not really know what to do with depression or schizophrenia, while there are specific biological changes in the background, as in the case of vascular or digestive diseases. It is also true that in these cases it is much more difficult to identify these changes, and our brain compensates very effectively for a long time for the damage caused by the disease, and by the time the more severe symptoms appear, it is already very bad.”

This also means that we tend to underestimate the initial symptoms and their significance.

“There is a lack of data in Hungary, but in England, for example, there is a very significant centre for chronic pain of various origins, so there are promising international examples of good practice. Overall, it is true that it is difficult to diagnose, e.g., fibromyalgia worldwide.”

Where women researchers can thrive

The fact that the third colleague of the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy has been awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science award is probably due not only to the importance and quality of the scientific work carried out here, but also to the organisational culture that explicitly supports the professional fulfilment of women researchers - so much so that it is absolutely ordinary for Éva Borbély and her colleagues.

“It is not strange to me at all that women researchers can have successful scientific careers, on the contrary, even. Our head of the department, Professor Erika Pintér, is also a woman, and Professor Helyes has always been the one to show an example. I have never been discriminated against because of my gender, but of course, I am aware that while there is a roughly equal proportion of boys and girls studying at the university, many women researchers then fall behind or have to give up research altogether because of raising children and other family commitments. But in the case of our department, the challenges of having and raising children are handled very flexibly and have been part of the organisational culture for a long time. Of course, I do not have such a deep insight into other departments at the Medical School, but I hope that the award I received will serve as a positive example and a retention force for female students and doctoral candidates preparing for a career in science.”

A life’s work

Positive examples and encouragement from such awards are much needed in science, and not just for women researchers. After all, scientific research is mostly a long-distance or even ultra-long-distance race, and Éva Borbély is fully aware of this.

“I am a pharmacologist, so for me, of course, the ultimate goal of my research is to create a new drug, or at least to lay the foundations for the development of a new drug. I also know that such a venture takes 30 to 40 years, so it is a life's work, of which we are still relatively at the beginning.”

However, as the UNESCO award also demonstrates, Éva Borbély has the enthusiasm, perseverance and knowledge to succeed.

Photos:

Dávid VERÉBI