The BBVA Foundation and the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona announce the Advanced Research Contracts created in tribute to Joan Rodés and Josep Baselga

• Oncologist Josep Baselga, a world leader in personalized medicine, dies

The first call for the BBVA Foundation-Hospital Clínic de Barcelona Joan Rodés-Josep Baselga Advanced Research Contracts in Oncology and Neurodegenerative Diseases is now open, which will allow professionals with a marked clinical and / or translational research profile in these areas to develop

.

It is a three-year program, from which

will benefit

. The BBVA Foundation-Hospital Clínic de Barcelona advanced research contracts are aimed at specialists in the Health Sciences, with experience in research, who wish to deepen their scientific specialization through the development of a

.

The first call for the program is now open. The two annual contracts -one per area- contemplated in this call will be awarded for research projects of a clinical and / or translational nature and will be developed in a coordinated manner at the Hospital Clínic and in a foreign reference center, selected in agreement with the Head of the Medical Oncology or Neurology service (depending on the subject of the project) at Hospital Clínic. The duration of each research contract will be 3 years and will entail a stay in the selected foreign center for a period of between 1 and 2 years.

"This new program to support research in oncology and neurodegenerative diseases, an initiative of the BBVA Foundation, has been modeled in all its aspects in close collaboration with the Barcelona Clinic, a leading hospital in which frontier research and care most advanced clinic are the core of its identity and activity. We want to

, with whom we maintained a long and fruitful collaboration, putting at the center what mattered most to both of them: sustained support for advanced training and the generation of new biomedical knowledge and its translation to the options of patients in high-risk areas. prevalence and complexity ", explained the director of the BBVA Foundation, Rafael Pardo.

For his part, the general director of Hospital Clínic, Dr. Josep María Campistol, stressed that "these contracts represent a great boost to excellence in research in key areas such as Oncology and Neurology. The proposal calls for projects of clinical and translational nature and are inspired by such relevant figures as doctors Rodés and Baselga. This says a lot about the spirit of this initiative, which has been possible thanks to the BBVA Foundation and

, with the ultimate goal of transferring research to the well-being of patients ".

Specialists in the field of Health Sciences may attend this new program, whether they are Spanish nationals, regardless of their place of residence, or non-nationals with a stable or long-term residence in Spain, with a track record of scientific research in the clinical and / or translational field that shows special interest in research in oncology or neurodegenerative diseases.

Candidates must be under 40 years of age, be in possession of a doctor's degree

and no more than 5 years have elapsed since the completion of their specialized health training.

Each research contract will be endowed with an amount of

. They will be distributed in 65,000 euros of gross salary and 35,000 euros to finance travel and accommodation expenses, as well as the acquisition of consumables and other expenses associated with the project that are necessary for its execution.

The deadline for submitting applications will be open

and the process of selection and assignment of research contracts will be carried out by an evaluation committee, made up of 10 experts of recognized prestige in the field of research. clinical and / or translational research.

In the evaluation of the proposals, the candidate's curricular profile and the research project presented will be taken into account.

The resolution of the call will be announced

.

Two visionaries who transformed medicine

These contracts, which will be convened annually for three years and are oriented towards a profile of excellence, bear the names of Doctors Joan Rodés and Josep Baselga, in recognition of two particularly innovative and transformational figures in biomedicine, whose multiple contributions are still alive. today in many facets of the best clinical and advanced translational research.

The hepatologist Joan Rodés (1938-2017), professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona, ​​created in 1968 the Hepatology Unit of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, ​​turning it into a highly prestigious clinical service and a worldwide reference. Rodés designed and promoted what came to be called "the Clinic model", which incorporated clinical research into a large healthcare center. It all started with a mobilization of students led by Rodés who caused the reorganization of the hospital inspired by an idea that he himself expressed: "

." They did so by integrating assistance and research and incorporating basic researchers.

The culmination of the model occurred when Dr. Rodés launched the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS) in 1996, of which he was director from its creation until 2008. Rodés focused his main lines of research on alcohol and alcohol. liver diseases, chronic hepatitis B and C viruses, liver cancer, complications from liver cirrhosis and chronic cholestasis.

Since joining the Scientific Advisory Committee of the BBVA Foundation in 2000, he was a

. His clinical experience and concern for health care were at the origin

(2007) in which, together with Dr. Rodés himself, more than 120 health professionals participated , all of them specialists in their fields and with extensive experience.

He was president of the European Association for the Study of the Liver and published, together with his team, more than 500 articles in the most prestigious medical journals, such as the

, and some 70 books. He did not like awards and tributes but was distinguished on several occasions with various awards such as the National Research Prize, the Creu de Sant Jordi, the Grand Cross of the Civil Health Order or the Canadian Liver Foundation Gold Medal.

Beyond his scientific contributions to the treatment of cancer, the leadership of the oncologist Josep Baselga (1959-2011) and his vision when integrating basic, clinical and translational research in a healthcare center such as the Vall d'Hebrón University Hospital were key for the

, which became a benchmark for other hospitals. The aim was to get the results of the research to the patients in the fastest and most direct way.

Dr. Baselga studied medicine at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​and began his training in Internal Medicine at the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital. He completed his training in Internal Medicine at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, and then in Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York. He returned to Spain in 1996 as Associate Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​and as Coordinator and Head of the Medical Oncology Service at the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital. Under his direction, he

, in which patient care was integrated with a basic, clinical and translational research program, in order to be able to transfer the advances made in the laboratory to cancer patients as quickly as possible.

This is the essence of VHIO, which was created, on his initiative, in 2006 and of which he was the first director, until his departure to the United States.

In 2010 he moved to Boston to direct the oncology division -with more than 100 researchers- of the Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School, combining this position with the maintenance of an important scientific activity at VHIO and

.

Between 2013 and 2018 he assumed the medical direction of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and since 2019 he was the global R&D director of the Oncology Area of ​​the British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. Dr. Baselga collaborated with the BBVA Foundation between 2008 and 2010 as a member of the jury for the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards in the Biomedicine category. And since 2011, the BBVA Foundation has continuously supported the Program on Tumor Biomarkers directed and promoted personally by Dr. Baselga from the VHIO in collaboration with other leading oncology centers, a program that led to the closest stage in the program, currently in development, of Immunotherapy and Cancer Immunology (Caimi), led by Dr. Josep Tabernero at the VHIO.

Thanks to his vision and his leadership capacity, he was elected president of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) and then of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), promoting, in both societies, fundamental changes to face the challenges Of future.

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