Echevarne Foundation
  Echevarne Foundation National Oncology Prize
 
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The Foundation periodically awards the Echevarne Foundation National Oncology Prize, with the aim of rewarding and encouraging research work, both basic and applied, which leads to advances and provides new perspectives to the problem of cancer.
The prize is open to any research work carried out by research staff at all Spanish centres, both public and private, in the framework of topics related to basic aspects and molecular pathology of cancer.

-The development and/or introduction of techniques or detection systems for genetic  abnormalities involved in the carcinogenic process -The identification and/or prognostic  evaluation of tumour markers or the research on other genotypic or phenotypic aspect of such  markers
-Other advances in the field of development or implementation of new cancer therapies
-Any other research work related to the basic mechanisms of neoplastic transformation with direct  foreseable impact in the cancer clinic or in any of the above points

To evaluate all these studies, the Foundation relies on the cooperation of a Scientific Committee made up of professionals of recognised international prestige: Dr. Carlos Cordón-Cardo, Dr. Joan Massagué, Dr. Angel Pellicer and Dr. Manuel Perucho.

1995 - I Echevarne Foundation National Oncology Prize
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In 1995 the first Echevarne Foundation National Oncology Prize was held. The winner was Dr. Carlos López-Otín for his work on the Structural and Functional Identification and Characterisation of new Proteolytic Enzymes and inhibtors of Proteases associated with Mammarian Carcinoma.

Carlos López-Otín graduated and obtained his PhD at the Complutense University of Madrid. His work was the result of several years of investigation on the molecular processes governing breast cancer cell dissemination. Since 1993 he has been Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Medical Faculty of the University of Oviedo.


1999 - II Echevarne Foundation National Oncology Prize
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The Second National Prize was held in 1999. It was won by Dr. María A. Blasco for her work on The Implication of Telomerase and Telomeres in Chromosomic Instability and Cancer.
María Blasco graduated and obtained her PhD at the Autonomous University of Madrid. She initiated her studies on the activity of the enzyme Telomerase and its implication in cancer during her Post-Doctoral stay at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York (1993-1996). Nowadys, she leads the Oncology Molecular Program, in the CINIO on Madrid.
     

The study and identification of the genes implicated in these telomeric maintenance mechanisms is fundamental in order to understand the progession of tumours.
2003 - III Echevarne Foundation National Oncology Prize

The third edition of the Fundacion Echevarne Oncology National Prize took place in 2003., the year Fundación celebrated its 10th anniversary. The prize was awarded ex-aequo to Drs. Xose Bustelo and Manuerl Serrano for their research on the functional characterization of the Vav oncoprotein family and on the tumour supression mechanisms in response to oncogenic stress, respectively.

Xose Bustelo, obtained his first degree in Biology and his PhD at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Mariano Barbacid at the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute (Princeton, New Jersey-USA) and he is currently a group leader at the Salamanca Cancer rResearch Centre (CIC) as well as general coordinator of the Genomics and Proteomics spanish network of cancer centres.
Manuel Serrano, PhD, was an undergraduate at the Autonomous University of Madrid, were he also obtained his PhD degree in the Centre for Molecular Biology Severo Ochoa, at the Spanish Research Council (CSIC). He then followed his research as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. David Leach at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, (New York, USA). He currently runs a research group at the Spanish Oncology Research Centre (CNIO) in Madrid.