María José Sánchez, director of ibs.GRANADA, a researcher with a disseminating vocation
She is the scientific director of ibs.GRANADA, marking the research strategy of 1.045 researchers from hospitals in Granada, the university and the Andalusian School of Public Health.
A researcher with a disseminating vocation. Science must reach the patient and society in general. That is the motto of this researcher who leads an international group and works on a topic as sensitive as the fight against cancer. María José Sánchez Pérez (Níjar, Almería, November 30, 1966) accumulates years of vital and professional experience with an outstanding projection. She has been included in eighth place in the list of Spanish researchers of the CSIC, being the first Andalusian woman. In 2018 she was included in the list of Highly Cited Researchers, being one of the most cited in the world.
Since 2007 she has been the director of the Granada Cancer Registry. Sánchez Pérez watches over an issue that directly or indirectly affects the people of Granada. Since 2003 she has been a professor at the Andalusian School of Public Health. And, for two years, she has been the scientific director of ibs.GRANADA, marking the strategy and lines of research of 1.045 researchers from the Virgen de las Nieves University Hospital, San Cecilio Clinical University Hospital, the UGR, the Metropolitan District and the EASP. Her role is to be a facilitator and promote biomedical research of excellence in Granada.
She is the youngest of seven siblings (all letters), but she liked science and math. She studied Medicine at the University of Granada (1984-1990). He did the MIR specialty in Microbiology and Parasitology at the Virgen de las Nieves University Hospital and finished his doctoral thesis in 1996. Although he really liked clinical practice and infectious diseases, as he says, he got a research grant in an international project on viruses of the human papillomavirus (HPV) and oral cavity cancer at the Andalusian School of Public Health. «Joining a project of these characteristics allowed me to participate in all phases of the research process. That's where my interest and passion for epidemiology and cancer research began », she relates.
She has never stopped studying or training, she is an expert in epidemiology and clinical research (1999), in health promotion (2018) and in bioethics from the University of Granada (2021). The fact of working in an international multidisciplinary research group opened many doors for him in the field of research and since 2009 he leads a research group of national and international excellence of the EASP on cancer epidemiology, integrated in the CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health and in the ibs.GRANADA.
"I am passionate about what I do and enjoy working for and to reduce the burden of disease due to cancer and to improve equity in health care and the quality of life of cancer patients," he defends. For her, it is vital that the research "we do is transferred and reaches society."
