Lab Day 2023. Lab Day 2023. CNIO’s youngest researchers develop their “huge potential”

Imagen de clausura del Lab Day 2023, con los organizadores y participantes a la entrada del CNIO. Crédito: Laura M. Lombardía / CNIO.

Almost 30% of CNIO staff are PhD students: 140 young people who are starting out in their scientific career in a leading international centre, providing energy, curiosity and a fresh perspective on challenges in the line of knowledge advancement. All these ingredients were present at the XIII edition of CNIO Lab Day, an open day at which the centre’s youngest researchers present their work and receive hints from established researchers to develop their career.

“Lab Day creates a teamwork environment that we are profoundly proud of at CNIO,” said the Dean of Academic Affairs Marisol Soengas, who together with CNIO’s Student Association, CNIOSA, launched Lab Day. “It is a celebration involving the whole centre, organised altruistically by a committee of predoctoral researchers, which shows the huge potential of these young people.”

<sup>1. Marisol Soengas, Dean of Academic Affairs. 2. Maria A. Blasco, CNIO director (left) y Marisol Soengas.
3. Ernesto López, Nayim González and Ana de Pablos.</sup>

Participation in Lab Day keeps growing every year. In this XIII edition, which has once again broken records, more than a hundred papers “of the greatest international impact” were presented, said Soengas, along with 14 short talks and a further eight even shorter ‘flash’ talks. 90 posters were also displayed. All evaluated by 40 reviewers.

“Once again this year, CNIO Lab Day is bringing together high-impact research in the spirit of building a community that engages the entire centre,” said Ernesto López, president of CNIOSA. “The success of Lab Day proves that student involvement in the operation of the centre and scientific excellence are not only not mutually exclusive, but have coincided in this latest edition, with record participation levels.”

1. ^{Gema Mazón (left) and Victoria Caturla. 2. Lucía de Prado and Promega representative. 3. Mercedes Robledo (left) and Bruna Calsina.}

The director of CNIO, Maria Blasco, recalled that “one of the most important tasks we do at CNIO is train scientists for the coming decades.”

Nicholas McGranahan, a researcher at the UCL Cancer Institute (London), and Iris Uribesalgo, policy officer in the European alliance of bioscience centres, EU-LIFE, were guest speakers at the event.

^{1. Nicholas McGranaham (UCL Cancer Institute) during his tolk. 2. María Ramal (left) and Iris Uribesalgo (EU-LIFE). 3. Alfonso Aguera, CNIO Friend, with Dácil Alonso Gil.}

McGranahan presented the research he is currently doing in a growing area: developing computational methods to explore the cancer genome, and detecting patterns that help personalise treatment, thanks for example to much more accurate forecasts and a greater understanding of each patient’s reaction to specific drugs.

Uribesalgo gave a few hints about scientific careers other than research: “Believe in your capabilities, they are highly transferable. Researchers are used to learning, so don’t be afraid of new challenges.”

The conference was supported by Fundación Jesús Serra, Merck, Promega, Eppendorf, Nzytech and Revvity.

Highly celebrated awards

Close to twenty highly contested awards closed the celebrations, with a total of nine awards presented by CNIO’s Scientific Management team and a further nine by CNIOSA and the Dean’s Office.

• Bruna Calsina. Genomic and immune landscape of metastatic pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma. Nat Commun. 2023 Feb 28;14(1):1122.
• Dácil Alonso Gil. Different NIPBL requirements of cohesin-STAG1 and cohesin-STAG2. Nat Commun 2023 14, 1326.
• Isidoro Cobo. NFIC regulates ribosomal biology and ER stress in pancreatic acinar cells and restrains PDAC initiation. Nature Commun 2023, 14:3761
• Alejandro Collado-Solé. Luminal Rank loss decreases cell fitness leading to basal cell bipotency in parous mammary glands. Nat Commun 2023. 14:6213.
• Nicolás Cuesta-Hernández, Julia Contreras. An allosteric switch between the activation loop and a c-terminal palindromic phospho-motif controls c-Src function. Nat Commun 14, 6548 (2023).
• Sara Mellid. DLST mutations in pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma cause proteome hyposuccinylation and metabolic remodeling Cancer Communications 2023; 43(7):838-843
• Javier Coloma, Nayim González-Rodríguez. Molecular architecture and oligomerization of Candida glabrata Cdc13 underpin its telomeric DNA-binding and unfolding activity. Nucl Acids Res 2023; 51:2-668.
• Teresa González-Muñoz. Endoglin, a Novel Biomarker and Therapeutical Target to Prevent Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor Growth and Metastasis. Clin Cancer Res. 2023

Award for Excellence (postdoctoral or senior researchers):

• Alberto Sánchez Aguilera, Mariam Al-Masmudi Martín. Machine learning identifies experimental brain metastasis subtypes based on their influence on neural circuits. Cancer Cell (2023) and other merits.

Award for Outreach and Volunteering Actions

• CNIO volunteers at the Madrid Science fair : Inmaculada Sanclemente, Sergi Roig, Diana Patricia Retana, Neibla Priego, Jorge Luis Martínez Torrecuadrada, Vanesa Lafarga, Elena Blanco, Susana Llanos, Maria Solé, Gema Pérez Chacón, Francisco Jurado and Ana Cuadrado. (Award presented by CNIO Friends Gema Mazón and Victoria Caturla).

^{Award for Outreach and Volunteering Actions winners}

Awards presented by the Dean’s Office and CNIOSA

• Best presentations: Ana de Pablos (1st), Lucía de Prado (2nd) and María  Monteagudo (3rd)
• Best Poster: María José Jiménez (1st); Beatriz Rubio (2nd); Ivana Zagorac (3rd); Anais Jiménez, (3rd)
• Best T-shirt design: Blanca Rosa

^{Winners of CNIOSA and Dean’s Office Awards. / Laura M. Lombardía. CNIO.}

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