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ICREA researcher and group leader of the Stem Cells and Cancer Laboratory at IRB Barcelona receives an award for his work on cancer.
The prize acknowledges Salvador Aznar Benitah's contributions to transferring knowledge from basic to clinical research.
ICREA researcher and group leader of the Stem Cells and Cancer Laboratory at IRB Barcelona, Salvador Aznar Benitah, has been awarded the VI National 'Doctores Diz Pintado' Cancer Research Prize. Last Saturday, he received the award during the academic session held by the University of Salamanca on the occasion of the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Asked how he felt about the award of the National 'Doctores Diz Pintado' Cancer Research Prize, Salvador Aznar Benitah said, “it is one of the most prestigious in our country”. And he added, “this award brings me and my group great happiness. I am very grateful to the members of the jury for having placed their trust in us and for acknowledging our research”.
The group leader feels proud to have succeeded in building a group that encourages people to strive, to take their work seriously, to be passionate about it, and to work as a team. "Most people in the lab don’t stay in it for more than four or five years, but the philosophy of the lab is always the same", as Salvador Aznar Benitah highlights. He believes that most of the people who have gone through his lab, or who are currently working in it, uphold this passion for science and the promotion of rigorous teamwork.
The award coincides with the recent publication of his study in Nature, which has identified the cells responsible for initiating and promoting metastasis in several types of human tumour.
About the Prize
The National 'Doctores Diz Pintado' Cancer Research Prize, named after the doctors Manuel and Alfonso Diz Pintado, is given by the "Fundación de Investigación del Cáncer de la Universidad de la Salamanca (FICUS) – Centro de Investigación del Cáncer (CIC)" with the aim to promote and award the work of young Spanish scientists in oncology research. This is the second time an IRB Barcelona researcher has won this award. Eduard Batlle, coordinator of the Oncology Programme and head of the Colorectal Cancer Laboratory, received it in 2014.
More information: Press Room Universidad de Salamanca
About IRB Barcelona
The Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) pursues a society free of disease. To this end, it conducts multidisciplinary research of excellence to cure cancer and other diseases linked to ageing. It establishes technology transfer agreements with the pharmaceutical industry and major hospitals to bring research results closer to society, and organises a range of science outreach activities to engage the public in an open dialogue. IRB Barcelona is an international centre that hosts 400 researchers and more than 30 nationalities. Recognised as a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence since 2011, IRB Barcelona is a CERCA centre and member of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST).
