The Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, with Raúl Rabadán. / Courtesy of MICIU
(From MICIU). Today, on World Cancer Research Day, the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, visited the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), where she met with its new scientific director, Raúl Rabadán.
CNIO Board of Trustees unanimously elected Rabadán on 4 September following a selection process that began on 10 April with the opening of the international competition for this position.
During her visit, Minister Morant highlighted the work being done at CNIO, Spain’s leading cancer research centre and the second most important in Europe. ‘The Spanish Government is fully committed to cancer research and we know that science is the key to defeating it,’ she stressed.
Diana Morant also recalled that since 2018, the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MICIU) has allocated ‘nearly €1.1 billion to cancer research’ through its three main funding bodies: the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), the State Research Agency (AEI) and the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI).
In addition, the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) has raised a total of €44.4 million to develop 177 competitive national and international research projects on this disease.
International career of scientific excellence
Raúl Rabadán holds a degree in Physics and a PhD from the Autonomous University of Madrid. Until now, he has worked as Gerald and Janet Carrus Professor at Columbia University in New York (USA), where he was director of the Mathematical Genomics Programme and previously director of the Centre for Topology of Cancer Evolution and Heterogeneity. Previously, he was a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton (USA) and at CERN in Geneva (Switzerland).
His scientific work has focused on developing and applying quantitative models to large-scale genomic data to understand the dynamics of biological processes, specifically cancer and infectious diseases. This has resulted in more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications, including high-impact journals (New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, Science, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Cell, among others).