Among the ideas with the greatest capacity to renew and advance society are those from a group of researchers, creators, artists, professionals who are in an interim period of his career, a phase located between the young talent and senior enshrined in which have already obtained the first significant results, but much of the production is yet to come.

An exponent of this group is Alvaro Aytes Meneses (Barcelona, 1977), principal researcher at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO). And in recognition of his worth, the BBVA Foundation has awarded one of the Grants for Researchers and Cultural Creators, that the institution has called, for the third consecutive year, in order to contribute to recognize and consolidate the most productive members of this highly qualified group, which despite its potential and value often have not achieved job stability. Aytes began his current line of work on prostate cancer at the University of Columbia in 2009. His project, called Epigenetic mechanisms for castration resistance in prostate cancer: therapeutic opportunities in combination with androgen receptor antagonists, will study the molecular mechanisms responsible for therapy-resistant prostate cancer, and will explore strategies to combat it. Therapeutic resistance is the main cause of mortality in cancer and pharmaceutical spending in cancer care. For these reasons, his research is key to increase survival and optimize resource management of public health systems. In particular, in prostate cancer, survival at 5 years down from 100% in early-stage tumors, to 25% in patients with metastatic castration-resistant disease.

From a total of 1,800 applications submitted this last call, the winning projects (which have been selected through an open and competitive process) address issues of general interest such as cancer research, cardiovascular disease, environmental protection from different perspectives or recovery of the musical heritage. The average age of the selected is 40 years, and most have extensive international experience and an unconsolidated employment situation. The 60 individual grants are gifted in 40,000 Euros each.