Ruth Rodríguez Barrueco, L'Oréal-UNESCO Research Award for Women in Science
IDIBELL-UB researcher Ruth Rodríguez Barrueco has been awarded one of the five L'Oréal-UNESCO Research Awards 'For Women in Science' in its 2018-19 call. The award, worth 15,000 euros, will support and promote the project carried out by Ruth Rodríguez, which focuses on the discovery of new targets for breast cancer treatment.
IDIBELL-UB researcher Ruth Rodríguez Barrueco has been awarded one of the five L'Oréal-UNESCO Research Awards 'For Women in Science' in its 2018-19 call. The award, worth 15,000 euros, will support and promote the project carried out by Ruth Rodríguez, which focuses on the discovery of new targets for breast cancer treatment.
Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in females in Europe; effective treatments for the most aggressive cases are still to be found. Researchers have identified a small population of cells with stem cells characteristics (breast cancer stem cells, BCSC) which are related to tumour progression, resistance to treatment and metastasis. New therapeutic approaches suggest targeting these stem cells in combination with traditional chemotherapy. However, the selective clearance of BCSC remains a challenge, since they are very similar to normal stem cells.
Ruth Rodríguez, researcher at Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, notes that this project wants to “find a strategy to identify some of the molecular mechanisms that are essential for BCSCs to survive. To do so, we will use the CRISPRs library that we have recently generated in our laboratory. The identification and validation of specific BCSC vulnerabilities has important clinical implications since they can represent effective candidates for new targeted therapies”, explains the IDIBELL-UB researcher.
Rodríguezʼs previous research, carried out during a six-year postdoc at Columbia University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount (New York), had a translational focus. In 2016, she joined Newcastle University as a faculty fellow; she was also awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship funded by the European Union H2020 program. In 2018, she joined IDIBELL as a Ramon y Cajal researcher.
Women continue to be under-represented in public and professional life, particularly in science, where the “glass ceiling” is still a reality. Today, only 28 % of scientists are women and only 3 % of science Nobel Prizes have been awarded to women since the awards began in 1901. Despite this, there are many eminent women scientists, and raising their profile is vital to promote greater gender equality in science.
Initiative against glass ceiling
The LʼOréal-UNESCO for Women in Science initiative, created in 1998 by the LʼOréal Foundation and UNESCO aims to recognise women researchers who, through the scope of their work, have contributed to overcoming today's global challenges. To date, the LʼOréal-UNESCO partnership has distinguished 97 eminent women at the culminating point of their scientific careers and supported 2698 promising young women scientists through doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships. Today, over 2795 women have been recognized in more than 115 countries.
Award for young researchers
The UB researcher has also been recognized by the Spanish Association for Research on Cancer (ASEICA) with the ASEICA Award for young researchers. These awards honor the most innovative studies on cancer. The prize, awarded to its leading research study on breast cancer, was granted during the conference of this association, which took place in Valencia, from November 6 to 9.