Researchers Dr. Borja Ibáñez, Dr. Maria Carmen Collado and Dr. Rubén Nogueiras win the 3rd edition of the Fundación Occident Research Awards in the fields of nutrition and food.
The awards received in each category are intended to deepen the link between nutrition, food and health. The winning projects work to provide interesting results in these fields of research.
About the winners and their projects
Dr. Borja Ibáñez, joint winner of the 3rd edition in the clinical category, heads the Clinical Research department of the National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) and is cardiologist at the Fundación Jiménez Díaz University Hospital, as well as Head of the CIBERCV Group.
He has received this award for his clinical research career and, specifically, for his research work “Nutritional approaches for the prevention of cardiotoxicity associated with cancer treatments”, focused on developing a new therapeutic intervention aimed at reducing the prevalence of chronic heart failure in cancer survivors.
For Dr. Ibáñez, receiving this award “is an important recognition of a study that we consider to be a pioneer in Europe and that will attract a lot of interest both in the cardiovascular and oncology fields, as well as among the general public. It will also allow us to provide more resources for the project so we can meet our objectives.”
For her part, researcher Dr. Maria Carmen Collado, joint winner in the clinical category from the Biotechnology Department of the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology-Spanish National Research Council (IATA-CSIC), has been selected for her research career in the field of clinical research and, in particular, for her research work “Interaction between microbiota and diet during the first 1,000 days of life”.
Dr. Collado stated that this recognition constitutes “support for the development and application of new maternal and infant intervention strategies using diet, probiotics and/or functional foods to reduce the risk of certain diseases through early prevention of alterations in the microbiota. This award will also allow us to complete the work we have underway and to maintain our position as a research group in the maternal and child area both in Spain and abroad.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Rubén Nogueiras, winner in the basic category, is a researcher at the Singular Centre for Research in Molecular Medicine and Chronic Diseases and full professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela (CIMUS-USC). He was selected to receive this recognition for his project “Role of Tanycytes in Nutrient Sensing“, which is closely focused on pandemic diseases that involve a high economic, social and health cost such as obesity.
For Dr. Nogueiras, winning this award “is an important recognition of our work and a support for research that can provide a completely new perspective on how communication between peripheral organs and the central nervous system takes place”.
About the Fundación Occident Research Awards
The aim of the Fundación Occident Research Awards is to encourage research in the field of nutrition and food, a field that has been shown to be fundamental in terms of its relationship with health.
This link has been consolidated such that many studies and research works indicate that lifestyles and eating habits are capable of preventing and improving the clinical situation of diseases such as coronary heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes, cancer and obesity, among others.
The president of Fundación Occident, Federico Halpern, said that “For the Foundation it has always been very important to support research in Spain and research focused on nutrition and food even more so. This past year has only reinforced our thinking and that is why we continue to support young scientists to help improve the eating habits of our society. This 3rd edition examined many good projects and proof of this is the career trajectory and importance of the scientists who have won and the magnitude of their projects.”
The award ceremony will take place at 7.30pm next Wednesday, 16 June, at the El Beatriz Madrid auditorium, and will be streamed on the Fundación Occident’s YouTube channel. The event will be attended by Ms. Ana Isabel Cremades, Director General of Research and Technological Innovation of the Regional Ministry of Science, Universities and Innovation of the Community and will be directed by Sonsoles Onega.
For the latest news, you can follow the Fundación Occident Research Awards on social media using the hashtag: #PremiosInvestigaciónFJS.