Salud Investiga Awards 2012 that recognize the scientific practice of professionals and research projects in Andalusia
The distinctions are for an international cooperation project, public health in Primary Care, a research on lupus and three scientific trajectories
The jury of the Health Investiga Awards 2012 has issued its opinion on the research projects and professional scientific careers that have been deserving of these awards, recognition of the work of the groups and professionals of the Andalusian Public Health System who, with their work and daily effort, contribute to the development of the I + D + i in Health in the autonomous community.
The third edition of this biennial contest has five modalities (two for professional careers and three for research projects), as in the previous edition but, this time, they lack financial reward.
The awards, -managed by the Andalusian Public Progress and Health Foundation-, aim to recognize the scientific works developed in the field of Andalusian health, also committed to global strategic research lines and to publicize projects, initiatives and professional careers outstanding organizations that contribute to the generation and application of knowledge in the field of Health.
To do this, these awards are configured around five modalities with which they want to reward the daily work of research in Health of institutions, groups and researchers. Thus, there are the categories "Young" and "Isabel Fernández for Assistance Research", to which candidates must apply by nomination of third parties and the categories "Alliances and Scientific Cooperation", "Public Health" and "Vanguard Research".
Awarded according to the modalities:
For the first time, in the mode "Young,” the award has been shared between two researchers. On the one hand, the prize has been awarded to Salvador Arias-Santiago Physician specialist in the area of Medical-Surgical Dermatology and Veneorology at the General Hospital of Baza. At the age of 30, he already has an outstanding scientific career and, proof of this, are the almost 30 original articles published in different prestigious scientific journals. His research work, always focused on the patient and with great clinical applicability, focuses on psoriasis, androgenetic alopecia and skin cancer. In addition, and in collaboration with the Tissue Engineering group of the University of Granada, Arias develops a line of research aimed at improving the characteristics of artificial skin to be used in patients with serious dermatological diseases. Arias Santiago develops his scientific work under a Río Hortega research contract from the Carlos III Health Institute co-financed by the Foundation for Research in Biomedicine of Eastern Andalusia -Alejandro Otero- (Fibao).
On the other hand, the Granada researcher Jose Luis Garcia-Perez also share this award. His line of research, with a translational approach, focuses on knowing the biology of a specific element of DNA, called Line-1, whose mobility is related to diseases such as cancer, hemophilia or muscular dystrophy, among others. Their studies reveal the implications of these little-known mobile elements and their impact on the human genome. His scientific career has earned him one of the most outstanding awards in the scientific world, the International Early Career Scientist 2011 award granted by the American institution Howard Hughes Medical Institute to only 28 scientists from around the world out of 760 candidates. García-Pérez develops his work at the Pfizer-University of Granada-Andalusian Government of Genomics and Oncology Research Center, Genyo. He has participated in more than a dozen research projects and has published numerous publications in prestigious international impact factor journals such as Nature, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Stem Cells, Human Molecular Genetic or PNAS, among others.
The "Young" modality rewards professionals up to 40 years of age with talent and a scientific vocation who have carried out a research activity with commitment, rigor and ethical integrity in the environment of the Andalusian public health system, in a health research institute, or in some other research center participated by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
For its part, in the category "Isabel Fernández to Healthcare Research" the work of the director of the Allergology Clinical Management Unit of the Carlos Haya Regional Hospital has been recognized, Miguel Blanca Gomez, who throughout his professional career has been able to successfully combine healthcare practice and research, specifically, in the field of allergies. He has developed intense research work on health problems related to allergic diseases, a growing phenomenon that is currently prevalent and affects more than 20% of the Spanish population. His studies, reflected in a score of indexed publications, are aimed at solving research problems that appear in daily clinical practice.
His lines of work include allergic reactions to beta-lactams, drugs and respiratory allergies, among others. Blanca has developed a high capacity platform for the development of molecular diagnosis using its own techniques and has created strong alliances with international research groups.
The category "Isabel Fernández for Healthcare Research" recognizes the healthcare professional who, committed to solving the health problems of citizens, has generated knowledge during her outstanding scientific career that can be transferred to the citizenry, the primary purpose of research. in health.
In the case of the modality "Alliances and Scientific Cooperation", it has been recognized the European project called “MagicBullet: Optimization of treatment with off-patent antimicrobial agents of ventilatorassociated pneumonia (VAP) caused by Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and other multidrug-resistant gramnegative bacilli”. This independent clinical trial, led by José Miguel Cisneros Herrero, a researcher at the Seville Institute of Biomedicine (IBIS) and an area specialist at the Virgen del Rocío Hospital, is a European clinical research and technological innovation project whose main objective is to reduce the mortality of patients with pneumonia associated with mechanical ventilation in areas with a high incidence of infection by multiresistant gran negative bacilli. It is aimed at alleviating the antibiotic crisis and improving the antimicrobial treatment of this disease.
35 public institutions participate in this project, including hospitals, microbiology laboratories, universities and two private biotechnology companies, from five different countries (Spain, Germany, France, Italy and Greece). The entire project has been conceived, developed and coordinated by the Andalusian Public Health System.
This category aims to reward the contribution to the consolidation of R & D & I in the Andalusian public health system and the advancement in scientific knowledge from the way of collaboration rather than competitiveness between groups of researchers, entities and corporations. The alliances that emerged as a result of public-private cooperation, cross-border collaborations and the results of the projects developed for the exchange of young researchers included in mobility programs have been preferably valued.
In the category of “Public Health”, the award has been awarded to project Prediction of future episodes of depression in primary care. Evaluation of a risk profile (Predict-Spain), led by the researcher from the Malaga Primary Care District, Juan Ángel Bellón Saameño. This work is launched with the objective of developing and validating a multifactorial risk inventory to predict the onset and maintenance of episodes of depression in Primary Care. Reducing the prevalence of depression is a great challenge for public mental health, since this pathology is considered one of the most common mental disorders today, of great magnitude and with a global incidence.
This project, thanks to which a tool has been developed to predict the risk of suffering from depression in the Spanish population, provides a new approach to action based on knowledge of the level and profile of risk in patients.
This modality recognizes research projects that contribute to improving the health of the population and innovative initiatives related to citizen participation, intersectorality, active and healthy aging of the population or the organization of health services, as well as the presentation of proposals for new approaches to action to know, intervene and evaluate public health.
Finally, in the category of “Vanguard Research”, the award has been awarded to Fine mapping and replication of genome scans project in systemic lupus erythematosus: strategy for the identification of functional variants and intergenic interactions led by Marta Alarcón Riquelme, researcher from the Granada center Genyo. Thanks to this work, framed in the field of molecular epidemiology, two specific genes linked to the development of lupus disease have been identified, a chronic and autoimmune disease that mainly affects young women and women of reproductive age. The results of this project will have an impact on the clinical development of lupus markers, necessary to determine the effect of drugs on the evolution of the disease.
This modality aims to distinguish the research work dedicated to the search for new ways for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases from innovative approaches, on the frontier of knowledge, and the ability to turn this research into activities that generate wealth and well-being for the citizenship.
Research recognition
The Salud Investiga Awards are an evolution of the Health Research Award that since 2001 has been convened by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare with the purpose of promoting, within the Andalusian Public Health System, research activities and with the aim of recognizing the work that many professionals develop in this area. This initiative added five editions to evolve into the Biennial Health Investiga Awards, the first edition of which was convened in 2008.
The evaluation of the candidatures has been carried out by technical experts and a jury made up of national scientists of recognized international prestige in the field of biomedical research.
Source: Progreso y Salud Foundation
