Angela Nieto. National Research Award “Santiago Ramón y Cajal”, in the area of Biology.
A pioneer in the study of the origin of cancer and degenerative diseases of aging, Angela Nieto was able to detect how a basic cellular process is important during some phases of the development of the embryo and its implications in the process of human pathologies, says Miguel Manzanares, of the Center of Molecular Biology Severo Ochoa (CSIC-UAM).
Angela Nieto defines her work as “the way to understand the mechanisms that shape the embryos, the organs, the liver, the heart…”, mechanisms that are then “reactivated in different diseases, as in the case of cancer, to spread the cells throughout the body”.
Elected member of the European Organization of Molecular Biology (EMBO) in 2000, Member of the European Academy in 2009 and Academic of the Royal Academy of Exact Physical and Natural Sciences in 2019, Angela Nieto points out a clear objective in her research: “We would like one day to be able to say that cancer has become a chronic disease or a curable disease.”
She is currently a Research Professor at the Institute of Neurosciences, the Higher Council of Scientific Research and the Miguel Hernández University, (CSIC-UMH) in Alicante; president of the International Society of Developmental Biology (ISDB); scientific delegate by Spain to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) since 2010; member of the Board of Directors of the International Society of Differentiation (ISD) and member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the State Research Agency (AEI), among other positions.
