Moments of celebration and special personal significance can also become a space for solidarity towards biomedical research. This is was Oscar Freitag and Lydia Dionís Giordano decided: they got married last April 5 and dedicated a part of their party to raising funds for breast cancer research at IDIBELL.
As Oscar and Lydia explain, “our mothers have been breast cancer patients, and for this reason we wanted to dedicate a part of that special day to all the women who have gone through or are going through this experience.” With the motto We all know a mother, that’s for her, the bride and groom distributed pink bracelets to all the guests, where each person could write the name of their particular heroine, in reference to the person that each one knew who had suffered a breast cancer.
The donation from the solidarity wedding will help fund the research led by Dr. Sonia Pernas, principal investigator of the IDIBELL breast cancer research group and head of the Catalan Institute of Oncology Breast Cancer Unit. Dr Pernas, who attended the couple’s wedding and had treated the mother of a member of the couple, dedicated some moving words to the attendees. After a brief explanation about her research at IDIBELL, she was able to thank the couple and all the guests at the event for their solidarity.
The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) is a biomedical research center created in 2004. It is participated by the Bellvitge University Hospital and the Viladecans Hospital of the Catalan Institute of Health, the Catalan Institute of Oncology, the University of Barcelona and the City Council of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.
IDIBELL is a member of the Campus of International Excellence of the University of Barcelona HUBc and is part of the CERCA institution of the Generalitat de Catalunya. In 2009 it became one of the first five Spanish research centers accredited as a health research institute by the Carlos III Health Institute. In addition, it is part of the “HR Excellence in Research” program of the European Union and is a member of EATRIS and REGIC. Since 2018, IDIBELL has been an Accredited Center of the AECC Scientific Foundation (FCAECC).