Next Thursday, October 5, the Master’s Degree in Biotechnology and Bioengineering at the UMH begin. This is a master’s degree aimed at training the student as a researcher in any of the work areas that are part of both the Institute of Bioengineering (IB) and the Institute for Research, Development and Innovation in Health Biotechnology of Elche (IDiBE).

The opening event of the course will consist of a conference by Dr. Mariano Barbacid entitled “Precision Medicine: Targeting KRAS Mutant Cancers”. The biochemist Mariano Barbacid is the head of the Experimental Oncology Group of the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), an institution he founded in 1998, and AXA-CNIO professor of Molecular Oncology, where he has been fighting cancer for more than four decades. His discovery of the first human oncogene H-RAS (mutated gene capable of causing cancer) marked a turning point in the history of molecular oncology. His career and merits in research have been recognized with several national and international awards, having received the ‘honoris causa’ doctorate from the UNED, the Echegaray Medal, the highest distinction of the Academy of Sciences, the Juan Carlos I research award, the Steiner Prize, the Ipsen Prize, the Brupbaher Prize for Cancer Research, the Medal of Honor from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the Burkitt Medal and the Ramón y Cajal National Research Award in 2022. In 2011, he received a Research Chair from the AXA Foundation (Paris). He is one of the few European scientists to have received two European Research Council Advanced Grants (2009 and 2015) since their inception in 2008. He is also one of the eight Spanish members of the United States Academy of Sciences and the first Spaniard to be named Fellow of the Academy of the American Association for Cancer Research. To date, Dr. Barbacid is the author of 314 scientific publications that total more than 53,000 citations, which makes him a world leader in research and the fight against cancer.

The talk will take place next Thursday, October 5 at 12:30 p.m., in the Aula Magna of the Altabix building on the Elche campus of the Miguel Hernández University and will be open to the public.

Also mention that on the same day, October 5, starting at 6:30 p.m. at the Cervantes theater of Sax, the screening of the documentary “The Reverse Path” will take place, where the scientific career of Dr. Mariano Barbacid is portrayed, followed by a discussion between Dr. Mariano Barbacid (CNIO), Dr. Vicente Rubio (former President of SEBBM), Ms. Laura Estevan (Mayor of Sax) and moderated by Dr. Antonio Ferrer Montiel (Director IDiBE-UMH).