20/05/2016

Congratulations to Núria López-Bigas for the XI Banco Sabadell Foundation Award for Biomedical Research

The Jury of the Award for Biomedical Research of the Banco Sabadell Foundation has recognized Núria López-Bigas, leader of the Biomedical Genomics group of GRIB (UPF-IMIM), as the winner of the 2016 prize, endowed with 50,000 euros. In this eleventh edition there have been a total of 53 candidates with profiles of basic research, clinical and epidemiological. The jury decided to give this prize to Núria López-Bigas, for her contribution to the development of new bioinformatics methods to study cancer genomes. Her work opens up new avenues for the classification of cancer patients according to their tumors carry mutations and thus advance the implementation of the most appropriate individualized for each patient therapies.

"This award helps to give visibility to the Biomedical Research and lets the society know the people who do research. It is a social recognition of the work we do and it is an honor for me that the research done in my group has been recognized" said Núria when knowing the news."In Barcelona, high quality biomedicine research is made with leading research groups in this field to develop high-impact projects for society. For me, it is a luxury to do research in this environment and appear next to the remains of scientists who have been honored with this award".

President of the jury, Carlos Lopez-Otín, Professor at the University of Oviedo, said "The Banc Sabadell Foundation renews once again its commitment to research and scientific talent to recognize and support the most outstanding young in the field of biomedicine."

Núria López-Bigas has a bachelor in biology from the University of Barcelona. Her research career started in the laboratory of Dr. Estivill in Barcelona. She has worked as a researcher at the European Institute of Bioinformatics of Cambridge (UK), at the Genomic Regulation Centre (CRG) in Barcelona, where she had the opportunity to participate in the pilot phase of the ENCODE project and other related projects with the genome computer, and the laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge (UK). She is currently an ICREA research professor at the University Pompeu Fabra, where she coordinates the Biomedical Genomics group of GRIB (UPF-IMIM) dedicated to the research of cancer genomes.