The first call for advanced research contracts Foundation BBVA-Hospital Clírica de Barcelona Joan Rhodés-Josep Baselga on oncology and neurodegenerative diseases, which will allow professionals who have a marked profile clinical researcher and / or translational in these areas to develop Projects of three years in the Clínic Hospital in Barcelona and in a foreign reference center.
It is a three-year program, from which six researchers can benefit. Advanced research contracts Foundation BBVA-Hospital Clíric de Barcelona are intended for specialists from health science, with research experience, who wish to deepen their scientific specialization through the development of a specific project in the areas of oncology or diseases Neurodegeneratives.
The first call of the program is already open. The two annual contracts - one by area - contemplates this call will be awarded for clinical and / or translational research projects and will be developed in a coordinated manner at the Clínic Hospital and in a foreign reference center, selected by common agreement with the Head of Service of Medical Oncology or Neurology (according to the theme of the project) of the Hospital Clínic. The duration of each research contract will be 3 years and will entail the stay at the selected foreign center for a period of between 1 and 2 years.
"This new program to support research in oncology and neurodegenerative diseases, initiative of the BBVA Foundation, has been modeled in all its aspects in close collaboration with the Barcelona Clíni, a leading hospital in which border research and assistance more advanced clinic are the nucleus of their identity and activity. We want to pay tribute to two particularly innovative personalities of biomedicine, as doctors Joan Rhodés and Josep Baselga, with which we maintained a long-running collaboration, putting in the center what the most They cared both: the support sustained to advanced training and the generation of new biomedical knowledge and its translation of patient options in areas of high prevalence and complexity ", explained the director of the BBVA Foundation, Rafael Pardo.
For its part, the Director General of the Hospital Clínic, Dr. Josep María Campistol, has highlighted that "these contracts suppose a great impetus to excellence in research in key areas such as oncology and neurology. The proposal plays projects of Clinical and translational nature and is inspired by figures as relevant as the doctors were Rhodés and Baselga. This says much about the spirit of this initiative, which has been possible thanks to the BBVA Foundation and its commitment to excellence in the promotion of knowledge, with The ultimate goal of transferring research to the welfare of patients. "
This new program specialists in the field of health sciences may be attended, whether of Spanish nationality, regardless of their place of residence, or not national with a residence in stable or long-term Spain, with a trajectory of Scientific research in the clinical and / or translational sphere that demonstrates special interest in research in oncology or neurodegenerative diseases.
Candidates must be under 40, be in possession of the doctor's degree and that more than 5 years have elapsed since the end of their specialized health training.
Each research contract will be endowed with an amount of 100,000 euros per year. They will be distributed at 65,000 euros of gross salary and 35,000 euros to finance the costs of displacement and accommodation, as well as the acquisition of fungible material and other expenses associated with the project that are necessary for its execution.
The deadline for submission of applications will be open from October 15 to December 15 and the selection and allocation process of research contracts will be carried out by an evaluation committee, constituted by 10 experts of recognized prestige in the field of Clinical and / or translational research. In the valuation of the proposals, the curricular profile of the candidate and the presented research project will be mainly taken into account. The resolution of the call will be announced no later than January 30, 2022.
These contracts, which will be summoned annually for three years and that are oriented to a profile of excellence, carry the names of the doctors Joan Rhodés and Josep Baselga, as recognition of two particularly innovative and transformational figures of biomedicine, whose multiple contributions are still alive Today in numerous facets of the best clinic and advanced translational research.
The Hepatologist Joan Rhodés (1938-2017), Professor of Medicine from the University of Barcelona, created in 1968 the Hepatology Unit of the Hospital of Barcelona, making it a clinical service of great prestige and global reference. Rhodés designed and boosted what came to call "the clinic model", which incorporated clinical research to a great care center. It all started with a mobilization of Rhodés led students who caused the reorganization of the hospital inspired by an idea that he himself expressed: "To make high-level medicine, research". They did it by integrating assistance and research and incorporating basic researchers.
The culmination of the model occurred when Dr. Rodés launched in 1996 the Institute of Biomedical Research August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), from which he was director since his creation until 2008. Rhodés focused his main lines of research in alcohol and the Hepatic diseases, chronic hepatitis by hepatitis B and C virus, liver cancer, complications derived from liver cirrhosis and chronic cholestasis.
Since its incorporation to the Advisory Scientific Committee of the BBVA Foundation in 2000, it was a fundamental figure to shape its biomedical program, but to its activity in science in general. His clinical experience and his concern for health care were at the origin of the Health Book of Barcelona Clinic Hospital and the BBVA Foundation (2007), along with Dr. Rhodés 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 Liver's study and published, along with his team, more than 500 items in the most prestigious medical journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, and about 70 books. He did not like prizes and tributes but he was distinguished on several occasions with various awards as the National Research Award, the Creu de Sant Jordi, the Great Cross of the Health Civil Order or the Canadian Liver Foundation Gold Medal.
Beyond its scientific contributions to the treatment of cancer, the leadership of oncologist Josep Baselga (1959-2011) and his vision when it comes to integrating basic, clinical and translational research at an care center as the VALL D'Hebron University Hospital were key For the creation and development of the model of its Institute of Oncology, the VHIO, which became a reference for other hospitals. The objective was to reach patients in the fastest and direct way the results of the investigation.
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 the Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, and then on oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York. He returned to Spain in 1996 as Professor of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and as coordinator and Head of Medical Oncology Service of the VALL D'Hebron University Hospital. Under its direction, it created a pioneering multidisciplinary oncology department and international reference, which joined assistance to patients with a basic, clinical and translational research program, in order to transfer cancer patients to be carried out in the progress in the Laboratory as quickly as possible.
This is the essence of the VHIO, which was created, on its initiative, in 2006 and that He was the first director, until his march to the United States.
In 2010 he moved to Boston to direct the Oncology Division - with more than 100 researchers - General Hospital of Massachusetts / Harvard Medical School, combining this position with the maintenance of an important scientific activity in VHIO and the co-direction, next to Dr. Josep Tabernero, from the BBVA Foundation program for the investigation of tumor biomarkers.
Between 2013 and 2018 he assumed the Medical Management of New York Sloan Kettering Center and since 2019 was the R & D World Director of the Oncology Area of the British Pharmaceutical AstraZeneca. Dr. Baselga collaborated with the BBVA Foundation between the years 2008 and 2010 as a member of the Jury of the Border Prizes of Knowledge in the category of Biomedicine. And since 2011, the BBVA Foundation strongly supported the program on tumor biomarkers directed and promoted personally by Dr. Baselga since VHIO in collaboration with other leading oncology centers, a program led to the closest stage in the program, currently in Development, immunotherapy and immunology of cancer (CAIMI), led by Dr. Josep Tabernero in VHIO.
Thanks to his vision and his capacity for leadership, he was elected president of the European Medical Oncology Society (ESMO) and after the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), promoting, in both societies, fundamental changes to face the challenges Of future.
Date Of Update: 19 October 2021, 21:48
