Today the Social Programme of "la Caixa" has held a ceremony in the CaixaForum Madrid to award the 41 grants corresponding to the second edition of the International PhD Programme in Biomedicine. This doctoral programme is aimed a young talented scientists worldwide in four of the biomedical research centres of reference in Spain: the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), the Center for Genomic Regulation, the Spanish National Cancer Centre, and the Spanish National Center of Biotechnology.

This doctoral programme is aimed a young talented scientists worldwide in four of the biomedical research centres of reference in Spain.

When the programme ends in 2011, IRB Barcelona will have 40 researchers funded by “la Caixa”.

The award ceremony was chaired by the minister of Science and Technology, Cristina Garmendia, the director general of “la Caixa, Juan María Nin, and the director of the “la Caixa” Foundation, Jaime Lanaspa. Joan Guinovart (IRB Barcelona) accompanied the students during the ceremony. The young Belgian researcher Eva De Mol, a student working in Xavier Salvatella’s lab, gave a speech on behalf of the 10 students who will be working towards their PhDs in the next four years at the institute.

The “la Caixa” PhD Fellowship Programme for Biomedicine plans to award 160 grants over four years with an investment of approximately 18.4 million euros on the part of the bank. All the grants last for four years and are open to students and researchers worldwide. Last September, IRB Barcelona selected 10 students from Spain, Poland, Serbia, Belgium, Austria, Mexico, Switzerland, Cuba and France (2). When the programme ends in 2011, IRB Barcelona will have 40 researchers funded by “la Caixa”.