Three programs of research support funded by ‘la Caixa’ over 25 million euros to 75 scientists to bring in or retain talent in Spain.

Valle Palomo is 32 years old; obtained a scholarship at the National Cardiovascular Research Centre in the third race; won two research awards before completing the phd; it was a special award for the career of Chemical and also the doctorate; he also had several awards during his stay at the Scripps Institute in San Diego (USA) and the award for the best patent Madri+d; does sports twice a week and has two children of two and three years. “Many times I would stay in the lab to finish something, but I don’t let even a day go find my daughter to school,” she says. Now, in addition, just to get a help graduate of the Bank Foundation “la Caixa”, to form his own research group at the Center for Biological Research of the CSIC in Madrid.

She looks for molecules that can serve as drugs to protect the brain and even to help regenerate its cells after damage. But it is moving in the world of the microscopic. “In the world of nano materials, such as gold, have different properties to the ones that we know normally,” explains Valley.

Thanks to this technology of tiny-referred to as quantum dots, and even brands like Samsung have already taken commercial products with this claim, she develops sensors that can reveal the operation of routes molecular within a single cell and in real-time in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Párkinson, or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). And get to do so in human models using cellular reprogramming.

class=”icon-foto_16_g”> Hector Gil, Barcelona, 1985. Scholarship to study the acceleration of the Universe through the observation of millions of galaxies in the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona. JAVIER LUENGO

Is devoted to study the acceleration of the Universe and he comes armed with one of the instruments that allow to study a third dimension of the galaxies that leads directly to the calculation of the speed at which they move. “It is a plate of steel with holes in the exact place where there’s a galaxy -it explains-. This is what we put in the focal plane of the telescope, and in each hole we put a fiber cable, such as fiber-optic that comes the internet to the homes. This is how we calculate the third dimension and with it, we know the speed of the galaxy.”

Just hire a graduate student with the funding it has received. “This scholarship allows me to continue researching what interests me and to start my own research group over the next three years,” he says.

The neurons of itch class=”icon-foto_16_g”> Irene Rius, Tarrasa, 1987. She also received grants to develop medical technology of magnetic resonance imaging useful in the diagnosis of disease and in the choice of the most appropriate medications in real-time at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia. JAVIER LUENGO

Its working now -thanks to the help of a graduate who has just received of ‘la Caixa’- focuses to understand well these processes to be able to offer solutions to certain diseases that present with skin reactions, terrible that it is impossible not to scratch: the fight against the itching chronic.

Technology against cancer

Irene is not a researcher normal. It is bright, competitive, has been in some of the best poles world’s scientists, their research work is cutting edge… but he has never felt the call of the competitiveness. “At the University of Cambridge was trying to tell the other researchers that do other things, not only studying and working, that abusing. But there only want to be the best,” he says.

As some of his colleagues, was a special award in the Institute, but he also won the prize of the Generalitat to the 100 best notes in the Selectivity, although it never asked in what position was. “When I went to Cambridge, I applied because I didn’t know that it was a university as good, I always thought that the famous was Oxford.” And so on until now. Has also been at Harvard university (USA), in Heidelberg… and now again with this scholarship at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia to develop medical technology of magnetic resonance imaging to diagnose diseases and choose the most appropriate medications in real-time. The future of personalized medicine is already in the new laboratory of Irene, but she remains cautious: “I take these three years as a proof that I am able to lead my own group… that yes, I would like to stay to investigate in Spain”.

The president of the Bank Foundation “la Caixa”, Isidre Fainé’, congratulates one of the winning F. B. ‘THE CAIXA’RESEARCH FOR A MORE EQUITABLE SOCIETY

“We are launching a message: science is crucial for making a better society and that this society is more equitable·, said yesterday the president of the Bank Foundation “la Caixa”, Isidro Fainé, in the ceremony. Seventy-five investigators received 26 million euros in this act, also chaired by the director of the foundation, and Jaume Giró; Javier Solana, former minister of Education and Science and by the current minister of Science and Technology of Portugal, Manuel Heitor.

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