The Provincial Board of A Coruña of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) has distributed almost one million euros in 13 grants for cancer research. Among the winners are the undergraduate students of the EXPRELA group, Anahir Franco and Lucía Lomba.
Anahir, a student with a summer internship grant, spent two months with Angel Vizoso using the genomic editing technique, CRISPR. The aim of her study was to see how lncRNAs, non-coding RNA molecules of more than 200 nucleotides, influence on ovarian cancer pathology, both in cellular malignization processes and in resistance to chemotherapeutic compounds.
Lucía is also an internship student, but in her case she is enjoying the fellowship during the 2021/2022 academic year with Mónica Lamas. She is also using the CRISPR technique, although with a different objective: to analyze a very little studied protein that is associated with the genetic syndrome ataxia-pancytopenia, and which is also of great interest due to its potential as a cytoplasmic DNA sensor and its involvement in the immune response against cancer cells.
At the award ceremony, which took place on November 22, almost none of the winners were absent, 85% of whom are women.
Related article in La Voz de Galicia.