She also asked that "the importance of basic science" and "the essential role of science in generating knowledge" be taken into account, a fact that, according to Sabio, has become more evident than ever during the coronavirus crisis and the rapid development and effectiveness achieved with vaccines.
Both received the award ---endowed with 50,000 euros each--- from the president of Banco Sabadell, Josep Oliu, in a ceremony held this Tuesday night at the financial entity's corporate center in Sant Cugat del Vallès. In September, the XX Banco Sabadell Foundation Award for Economic Research will be presented to Barcelona native Mónica Martínez Bravo, Doctor of Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for her contributions in the field of political economy and economic development.
President Oliu was categorical in stating that "permanent investment in science saves lives" and that vaccines would not have existed without that base of researchers that the Banco Sabadell Foundation tries to recognize each year. "They are the most prestigious awards given in Spain to junior researchers in their 40s," asserted Oliu, who showed "his admiration for the winners" and evidenced that there is "a great generation of young talent" working "at the frontier of knowledge." "Companies need science and its developments" and today more than ever "the importance of technology and scientific education has been highlighted."
The president of the Banco Sabadell Foundation, Miquel Molins, and Professor Andreu-Mas Colell, president of the jury for the Science and Engineering award, attended the awards ceremony. Other members of the foundation's board of trustees and the jury also accompanied the winners, in an event with a very small audience that was broadcast via streaming and concluded with an outdoor dinner.
Extremadura native Guadalupe Sabio directs a laboratory with ten researchers at the CNIC focused on studying some of the causes of obesity, which she considers "the next pandemic." Specifically, her career has focused on knowing everything about two proteins (kinases) linked to so-called cellular stress, JNK and P38, which are very active in obese people. Her results show that p38s could become good therapeutic targets for inflammatory diseases, in the fight against the side effects of obesity, and in the treatment of fatty liver and liver cancer. Her work in these fields has been published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Cell Metabolism, PNAS, Plos Biol, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Nature Communications, and EMBO Journal.
For her part, Dr. Ana Tajadura-Jiménez, born in Madrid, has set out to help the 80% of the population who claim not to feel satisfied with their body. "The mental image we have of our body is very imprecise and affects health and emotional state," explains the researcher, who leads a team focused on creating sensory experiences that allow changing the perception of the body and helping, for example, people with anorexia.
To do this, she works with virtual reality and sound. Thus, the expert in technology and applied acoustics has designed Magic Shoes, shoes that make one feel lighter or heavier simply by changing the sound of footsteps. "Through sound, we can change our perception of the body; provoke illusions that help improve certain problems people may have," explained the scientist upon receiving the award. She has also developed several wearables to "sonify movement" and lead "a body computing project" with the aim of "creating a blueprint of the mental representation of the body, dynamic and individualized."