Ramón Areces Foundation funds some UB research projects on rare diseases
The Ramón Areces Foundation will fund some research projects of the University of Barcelona (UB) within its call for research grants in the field of Life and Earth Science. The main goal of the initiative is to consolidate Spanish scientific and technological structure. The Foundation has already allocated a total of 5.3 million euros to forty-five pioneering projects that study rare diseases, cancer, exosome, interactome, food security, renewable energies and high temperature superconductors.
The Ramón Areces Foundation will fund some research projects of the University of Barcelona (UB) within its call for research grants in the field of Life and Earth Science. The main goal of the initiative is to consolidate Spanish scientific and technological structure. The Foundation has already allocated a total of 5.3 million euros to forty-five pioneering projects that study rare diseases, cancer, exosome, interactome, food security, renewable energies and high temperature superconductors.
In the case of the University of Barcelona, the Ramón Areces Foundation has awarded the project that studies the functions of the Wt1 gene in Huntingtonʼs disease, led by Ofelia M. Martínez Estrada, Ramon y Cajal researcher in the Department of Cell Biology at the Faculty of Biology of the UB. The former rare disease is also studied by the award-winning project which is headed by Esther Pérez Navarro, professor in the Department of Cell Biology, Immunology and Neurosciences at the Faculty of Medicine. Moreover, Ana Méndez Zunzunegui, professor in the Department of Physiological Sciences II at the Faculty of Medicine and researcher at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), has received a grant to analyse the molecular basis of inherited blindness.
In Catalonia, the Ramón Areces Foundation will also fund the projects led by Enrique Martín Blanco (IBM-CSIC), Teresa Puig Miquel (UdG), Hernando A. del Portillo Obando (CRESIB), Cristina Flox Donoso (IREC) and Pau Gorostiza Langa (IBEC), which have been selected among 827 applications.
The Foundation is particularly committed to rare disease research. On the award ceremony, which took place on 7 April in Madrid, the president of its Scientific Council affirmed that “the low prevalence of rare diseases should not be a reason to not diagnose, treat or care those patients who suffer them”. The secretary of State for Research, Development and Innovation, Carmen Vela, emphasized: “It is necessary to strengthen public-private partnership as a tool to build academic, institutional and business ties to improve R&D productivity”.