This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
From the left: Jessica Rose, director of CNIO's Philanthropy programe; Antonio Bernal, director Domingo Martínez Foundation's Technical Committee, Leire Quintana Ayala, director of the Foundation, César López-Palop, president of the Foundation, Maria A. Blasco, scientific director of the CNIO, Mercedes Antona, from CNIO's philanthropy office. Credit: Laura M. Lombardía / CNIO.
The Domingo Martínez Foundation will finance with 100,000 euros for two years one of the 'CNIO Friends' contracts to be announced next week
CNIO Friends is the philanthropy program of the Spanish National Cancer Research Center
The Domingo Martínez Foundation has previously collaborated with this program, facilitating the hiring of Yurena Vivas in a project that studies how the tumor microenvironment contributes to the progression of pancreatic cancer
The Fundación Domingo Martínez has just signed a new agreement with the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) to fund one of the postdoctoral contracts that will be announced next week. These two-year contracts are part of the ‘CNIO Friends’ philanthropy program, and are funded by donations from individuals, associations, foundations and companies.
The Fundación Domingo Martínez already contributed to the 2020 call of CNIO Friends. On that occasion they fully funded a contract which was awarded to researcher Yurena Vivas. She was thus able to join the Metabolism and Cell Signaling group, led by Alejo Efeyan. Vivas initiated a project to explore whether the cells surrounding the tumor – the tumor microenvironment – in pancreatic cancer assist healthy cells in becoming malignant, thus contributing to cancer progression.
The great success of the first Fellowship resulted in the Board of Trustees making the decision to support a new Fellowship for 2025 with a gift of 100,000 euros, aimed at selecting a new researcher who has stood out for his or her talent and who wishes to carry out a research project of excellence focused on ‘cancer and the tumor microenvironment’.
Supporting talent
Yurena Vivas considers that the support of the Fundación Domingo Martínez “has been decisive for my scientific career and for the project I am carrying out”. In her opinion, “in a system like the Spanish one, where public investment is not high, patronage is fundamental. In other countries it is very common, because research is an expensive activity that requires significant economic investment. We need public and private institutions, such as the Fundación Domingo Martínez, willing to finance it”.
For the Domingo Martinez Foundation “it is important to contribute to the attraction of talent and the advancement of cancer research at an international reference center such as the CNIO. Through its philanthropy program, we reaffirm our commitment to scientific development and the fight against cancer”.
Jessica Rose, director of CNIO’s Philanthropy Office, points out that “with this generous contribution, we will once again have the opportunity to retain scientific talent in our country”. As for the impact of this kind of collaborations, Rose says: “we are delighted to extend our alliance with the Fundación, which will so provide for another fully funded CNIO Friends Fellowship. Not only because of the values that unite us, but because thanks to these scientific projects we can achieve an impact that will extend far beyond the foundation and the CNIO. In the challenge of finding new ways of early diagnosis and advancing in the cure of cancer, we can all be part of the solution.”
