The European Committee of the pharmaceutical company Lilly has awarded one of three Lilly prizes for doctoral students in its 2012 edition to Lorena Tizón Valverde, for research in the field of antibiotics in his doctoral thesis under the direction of Professor Concepción González-Bello at CIQUS.
The award ceremony will be held on September 28th at the Lilly headquarters in Alcobendas. The three winners will give a communication on research conducted for his doctoral thesis. In the even two internationally renowned scientists will also participate as plenary speakers, professor Phil S. Baran, from Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla (USA) and Cristina Nevado, University of Zurich (Switzerland). The event will include a poster session in which a selection of seven non-winning candidates will also present their work. One of these selected participants is another young CIQUS researcher, Lucía Sayas, who is finishing her PhD under the supervision of Prof. José Luis Mascareñas and Dr. Fernando López García (IQOG-CSIC).
The research work of Lorena Tizón in the group of Prof. Gonzalez-Bello is focussed towards the development of compounds able to block metabolic processes without which the bacteria could not survive for use as antibiotics. In particular, the studies focus on the development of new treatments against tuberculosis, a disease recognized by WHO as a priority from the point of view of research. It is caused by a highly contagious bacteria and its treatment is currently based on the intake of four different drugs for a period of 6 to 24 months. On the other hand, Lucía Sayas works on the construction of polycyclic skeletons of bioactive molecules by nickel catalysis.