Session I
Opening lecture
CRISTÓBAL BELDA, M.D., PhD. (ISCIII)
Cristóbal Belda is a specialist in Medical Oncology and he has been involved in the study of biomarkers and in the management of R + D + i for more than 15 years. He studied Medicine and Surgery in the University of Murcia and he obtained his PhD in Medicine from the Autonomous University of Madrid. Since he finished his residency at the La Paz University Hospital in Madrid and obtained a post-MIR research training contract (the current Rio Hortega), his relationship with the ISCIII has been constant. He was the director of the National School of Health (ENS) of the ISCIII and, before arriving at the aforementioned deputy directorate general of the ISCIII, executive director of the HM Hospitales Research Foundation.
Colloquium (online)
PAU GASOL
Pau Gasol is a Spanish former professional basketball player. He is a 6-time NBA All-Star and a 4- time All-NBA team selection. After playing in Liga ACB club FC Barcelona, he moved to the US to play with Memphis. Following more than six seasons with Memphis, Gasol played for the Los Angeles Lakers (2008-2014), the Chicago Bulls (2014-2016), the San Antonio Spurs (2016-2019), and the Milwaukee Bucks (2019). Gasol has won two NBA championships, both with the Los Angeles Lakers back-to-back in 2009 and 2010. He was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2002 with the Memphis Grizzlies, being the first non-American player to have won that award. He is regarded as one of the greatest power forwards of all time and is also considered as one of the greatest European players of all time. In addition, Gasol has won a FIBA World Cup title, three EuroBasket titles, two Olympic silver medals, and an Olympic bronze medal with the Spanish national basketball team.
In 2003, he was named a UNICEF ambassador, and since then he has repeatedly taken part in different campaigns. In 2013, along with his brother Marc Gasol, he established the Gasol Foundation to help to promote community health and healthy living habits, especially by preventing and fighting childhood obesity. In 2019, the Gasol Foundation presented the Estudio Pasos, a pioneering work in studying obesity levels in kids between 8 and 18 years of age which threw light on the levels of physical inactivity among children and adolescents.
VALENTÍN FUSTER, M.D., PhD. (CNIC)
General Director of CNIC and Director of the Cardiovascular Institute and Physician-in-Chief at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York. He is also Editor in Chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC). Dr. Fuster is the most highly cited Spanish research scientist and also has a higher h index than any other Spanish researcher. His research tops rankings for both quantity and quality and has extraordinarily contributed to cardiovascular medicine. In addition, he is strongly committed to communicating to the public and promoting healthy lifestyle habits. Dr. Fuster’s career stands as a model of the kind of research and innovation in which Spain needs to excel in order to compete in the global economy.
Roundtable
VICENTE ANDRÉS GARCÍA, PhD. (CNIC)
Vicente Andrés obtained his PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Barcelona in 1990. During his postdoctoral training at the Children’s Hospital of Harvard University (1991-1994) and at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center of Tufts University (1994- 1995), he conducted studies on the role played by homeobox transcription factors and MEF2 in cell differentiation and proliferation processes. At this stage he initiated his interest in the area of cardiovascular research.
In 1995 he was promoted to Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University and began his career as an independent researcher. Since then, Dr. Andrés and his group have studied vascular remodeling during atherosclerosis and post-angioplasty restenosis. After obtaining a position as Senior Scientist at the Higher Council for Cardiovascular Research, Dr. Andrés returned to Spain in 1999 to establish his research group at the Valencia Institute of Biomedicine, where he worked as a Research Professor. Since 2006, his group has been a member of the Thematic Network for Cooperative Research in Cardiovascular Diseases (RECAVA). He joined the CNIC in September 2009.
In 2010 he has been awarded the Doctor Leon Dumont Award from the Belgian Society of Cardiology.
DAVID ARAÚJO VILAR, M.D., PhD. (CiMUS, University of Santiago de Compostela)
David Araújo Vilar is an Associated Professor of Medicine at the University of Santiago de Compostela since 1998 and Clinical Endocrinologist at the University Clinical Hospital of Santiago de Compostela since 1996. He is the Vice-Dean of Clinical Teaching at the School of Medicine (University of Santiago de Compostela, 2005-2010) and Assistant Professor at the Department of Medicine. He did his PhD at the University of Santiago de Compostela and was Post-doc fellow research at the Oxford University (Radcliffe Infirmary, 1989-91). He has more than 50 scientific publications and he is the Founder-President of the Spanish Lipodystrophies Society.
Awards: Pfizer Prize Award in Woman’s Health (2009), Academia Médico-Cirurxica Compostelana Prize Award (2010), Galician Society of Endocrinology, Nutrition and Metabolism Prize Award (2010), Asociación de Enfermedades Raras D’Genes Prize Award (2012).
ESTER MARTÍNEZ GRACIA (Alexandra Peraut’s mother)
Alexandra is a 6 years old girl from Barcelona. She was two years old when she was diagnosed with Progeria, a rare disease that causes premature aging. Her story is told in the book ‘A girl in 20 million’ written by the researcher Núria Coll-Bonfill and the writer Quim Miró. Her parents, Esther Martínez and Cédric Emmanuel Peraut, have created the Alexandra Peraut Progeria Association with the purpose of giving visibility to the disease, ensuring that people who go through the same or any rare disease do not feel the loneliness they felt.
With the collaboration of Sammy Basso
Workshops
Workshops: Industry
LOURDES HERREROS, PhD. (ICON plc)
Lourdes Herreros holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry, specializing afterwards in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Madrid, Spain). After completing her PhD in Chemistry (immuno-oncology) at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Madrid, Spain), she transitioned to the pharmaceutical industry. Starting in 2002 as a Clinical Research Associate (CRA) at Roche Farma España, she has worked for more than 20 years in some of the world’s top companies within the healthcare industry. Currently, she works in ICON plc, one of the top 5 Contract Research Organizations (CROs) in the world, as a senior manager of the Study Start-Up Unit, focusing on speed-up the process to provide access to patients to medicines. She has combined her role as a functional manager for Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Israel and Slovakia with her role as a Global Study Activation Manager in studies up to 30 countries; she has a large experience in setting up clinical trials with large and mid-size pharmas and biotech companies.
Given her wide experience in both basic and translational research, we would like to hear from her about how pharmaceutical companies and CROs work together to deliver new treatments and diagnostic tools progress from the bench to the bedside. Moreover, given her professional career in both the academia and the clinical trials industry, she would be able to share insights about the fruitful collaborations that can take place between both areas to cover successfully all the development process from basic to translational research to improve patients’ lives.
Workshops: Diplomacy
SARA CEBRIÁN (British Embassy Madrid)
Sara Cebrián has been the Science and Innovation Attaché at the British Embassy in Madrid since 2008. With responsibilities over Spain and Portugal, Sara works to enhance UK growth by connecting UK innovation and scientific expertise with international opportunities, strengthening foreign policy influence through science and innovation and supporting international development goals.She coordinates the science diplomacy activity of the British government across Iberia, looking for political synergies and matching UK expertise to international need.
She has previously worked as an R&D program manager and strategy consultant. She has taken part in a wide range of projects, including Ministerial and State Visits, launch of the UK Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge in Spain and has led the Embassy’s science and innovation communication’s strategy. Moreover, she holds a MSc. in Agricultural Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid.
Workshops: Stress management (in Spanish)
MÓNICA OROZCO (Psychologist)
Licenciada en Psicología por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Experta en Inteligencia Emocional por la Universidad Camilo José Cela.
Experta en Mindfulness en la práctica clínica, por la asociación española de mindfulness y compasión (Aemind)
Instructora certificada del Método de Eline Snel “Mindfulness para niños y adolescentes”
Instructora certificada en Disciplina Positiva para familias por la Positive Discipline Association.
Psicoterapeuta en consulta privada con más de 20 años de experiencia en el trabajo clínico tanto adultos como con niños, adolescentes y familias, integrando la psicología occidental y las prácticas contemplativas para el cultivo de la salud mental.
Practicante de meditación desde hace 12 años y con amplia formación y experiencia como instructora de Mindfulness en distintos programas y talleres.
Estudiante de psicología y filosofía budista en el Centro de Estudios de Budismo Tibetano Nagarjuna Madrid. FPMT
Workshops: soft skills
TRACEY WEISSGERBER, PhD. (Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin)
Tracey Weissberger, PhD. is a meta-researcher at Charité Universitatsmedizin Berlin. Tracey’s dreams of a world with correct data visualization and ethical and reproducible research. Hence she works on improving these through research, teaching and software development. She is author of numerous publications that explain how better data visualization can improve scientific transparency, how to identify and avoid the most common visualization errors in scientific publications and how the curriculum of statistical training in biomedical undergraduate degrees could be improved for better future science.
Workshops: Start-up
JAIME GARCÍA PRIETO, PhD. (MethodTx, PREV2020 and Galaneo)
Jaime García-Prieto is the founder and CEO of Galeneo. Cardiovascular translational researcher with extensive international academic, consulting and serial entrepreneurship experience in biomedicine, biotechnology and healthcare. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Biotechnology (2009) from the Complutense University of Madrid and a PhD (2017) from the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain). He completed his PhD at the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) under the supervision of Dr. Ibáñez and his thesis resulted in +20 publications in high impact journals (Science, Nat Comm, JACC, Immunity…) cited +2.500 times. Later, he moved into pharma industry as healthcare consultant at IQVIA and continued his translation to business in Lausanne (Switzerland) were he got an MBA at the prestigious IMD Business School (2018). Back in Spain, he founded 3 start-ups (MethodTx, PREV2020 and Galeneo). He currently combines his role as CEO at Galeneo with advisor for several healthcare startups and speaker on healthcare innovation masters.
Workshops: academic science
MARTA CORTÉS CANTELI, PhD. (CNIC, IIS-FJD)
Marta Cortes-Canteli holds Bachelor’s Degrees in Biochemistry (1999) & Biology (2001), and a PhD (2004), all from Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain). Her Thesis work received 2 Awards and focused on the role of a transcription factor in neuronal differentiation and brain injury. In 2008, she moved to The Rockefeller University (NY, USA) to study the vascular component of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). She was chosen to be a Women & Science Fellow and a BrightFocus AD Research Fellow and obtained her first 2 grants as PI. In 2015, she returned to Spain with a European Marie Curie Fellowship to start a line of investigation at CNIC deciphering the heart-brain connection in AD. She was later chosen to be a Miguel Servet Researcher and obtained 6 different grants as PI, a European Grant as Coordinator, a Leonardo BBVA Scholarship and a Standard Award from the American BrightFocus Foundation, among them. Cortes-Canteli has published over 20 research articles and has an h-index of 19. During the last 14 years she focused on understanding one key feature of the AD vascular component: the pro-coagulant state.
Session II
Bioethics
FERNANDO GARCÍA LÓPEZ, M.D., PhD. (ISCIII)
Fernando García López holds a PhD from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the same university, and he is a specialist in Nephrology and Preventive Medicine and Public Health. He studied a Master in Health Science at the School of Hygiene and Public Health of The Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore (USA), after a two-year stay through a grant from the Fulbright Commission-Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs. He has a background in bioethics, with a Master’s degree in Bioethics and Law: Health Problems and Biotechnology from the Universidad de Barcelona. Currently, he is head of the Neurodegeneration, Aging and Mental Health in the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII).
As a research activity funded by public bodies in competitive concurrence, he has been principal investigator of four research projects and currently directs a project on air pollution and health in Spain, focusing on its effects on dementia, depression, anxiety and suicide. His priority fields of research have been the methods and dissemination of clinical trials and the epidemiology of chronic kidney disease. Furthermore, he also coordinates the teaching of the Epidemiology course in the Master of Public Health at the National School of Health. For 27 years he has served on several research ethics committees. Nowadays, he is the chairman of the Research Ethics Committee of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. In the field of bioethics, he has a special interest in research ethics in all its aspects, as well as in public health ethics. In both fields he has participated in several teaching activities.
Closing Lecture (in Spanish)
FIDÉ MIRÓN (FEDER)
Fide Mirón Torrente is a communicator in the field of rare diseases and functional diversity. As a child, she was diagnosed with a rare disease called Gunther’s porphyria, with a worldwide prevalence of only 250 people. Current therapies for this type of porphyria are aimed at identifying and avoiding symptom triggers or relieving symptoms when they occur. However, treatments are not always effective and, in her case, the disease caused several recurrences and painful lesions that destroyed her hands and face.
However, it is always the person who wins; never the disease. She has always considered herself “a survivor and a fighter”. She has received several awards and has proclaimed herself an advocate for patients with rare diseases and functional diversity, participating in various national and international congresses. She is currently the vice-president of the Spanish Federation of Rare Diseases (FEDER).
As a patient, her proactive search for solutions and research for Gunther’s disease is outstanding. She meets Óscar Millet, a CIC bioGUNE researcher interested in her disease. They start their journey together, until they begin to find answers: in 2022 a clinical trial is approved in the USA to test a new molecule, designed by Oscar Millet’s group, against Gunther’s porphyria.
Fide Mirón Torrente should be invited to participate in the next PhDay event for her effort, her fighting spirit and her great confidence in research. So that she can inspire all the attendees and aware us of one of the meanings of science: to improve people’s lives.
CNIC PhDay 