Four IDIBELL researchers are involved in projects funded by La Marató de TV3 2009, dedicated to rare diseases. They are Julian Ceron, research group of chemoresistance and predictors of response and stromal tumour, Victor Volpini, research group of Neurological Disorders and Neurogenetics, David Monk, head of the group of genomic imprinting and cancer, and Ethel Queralt, head Cell Cycle Group.
The aid was announced during a ceremony held at the auditorium of the Biomedical Research Park of Barcelona on October 20, presented by the journalist Josep Cuni. The event was presided by the Catalan Minister of Health, Marina Geli; the rector of Science Policy at the University Pompeu Fabra, Teresa Garcia Milà; the director of La Marató de TV3 Foundation, Carme Basté, and the general manager of the Biomedical Research Park of Barcelona, Josep Llopart. Antoni Montserrat, an expert on rare diseases of the Public Health Directorate of the European Commission, completed the academic event with a keynote speech.
In total, more than seven million Euros raised during La Marató 2009 funds 20 projects participated by 47 researchers. Among the research centres that receive funding, highlights IDIBELL with 4 winning projects as well as the Hospital Clínic i Provincial de Barcelona and Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, with three winning projects each one.
A total of three Spanish research institutions and two international institutes, coordinated by Catalan centres, work toward the development of this activities. They are the Center for Biological Research and the Hospital Universitario La Paz, Madrid; Salamanca University Hospital; the School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania in the United States, and the University of Cambridge, UK.
The winning researchers will work in the next three years in the advancement of knowledge about rare diseases. The results that will be obtained in these twenty research projects will be presented in 2014 as part of a scientific symposium organized by La Marató de TV3.
Specifically, projects financed with funds from La Marató involving IDIBELL researchers are: