MSCA-PF: Joint application at the University of Granada. Department of Human Embriology and Anatomy.

Professor José Carlos Prados Salazar, from the Department of Human Embriology and Anatomy at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF) in 2022 at this University. Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (for more information about the 2022 call, please consult: http://sl.ugr.es/0cmA).

Brief description of the institution:

The University of Granada (UGR) was founded in 1531 and is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. With over 60,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and 6,000 members of staff, the UGR offers over 70 undergraduate degrees, 100 master’s degrees (9 of which are international double degrees) and 28 doctoral programmes via its 127 departments and 22 centers. Accordingly, the UGR offers one of the most extensive and diverse ranges of higher education programmes in Spain.

The UGR has been awarded with the "Human Resources Excellence in Research (HRS4R)", which reflects the institution’s commitment to continuously improving its human resource policies in line with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The UGR is also internationally renowned for its excellence in diverse research fields and ranked among the top Spanish universities in a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D projects, fellowships awarded, publications, and international funding.

The UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking - Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The 2021 edition of the ARWU places the UGR in 201-300th position in the world and as the second highest ranked university in Spain (http://sl.ugr.es/0cmF), reaffirming its position as an institution at the forefront of national and international research. The UGR stands out in the specialties of Library & Information Science (position 36); Food Science & Technology (39) and Hospitality & Tourism Management (51-75), according to the latest edition of this prestigious ranking by specialties (http://sl.ugr.es/0bSp). A little lower in the ranking, the UGR also stands out in Mathematics (76-100) and Mining & Mineral Engineering (76-100).

Additionally, the UGR has 7 researchers who are at the top of the Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list (http://sl.ugr.es/0cmD), most of these related to the area of Computer Science. It is also well recognized for its web presence (http://sl.ugr.es/0a6i), being positioned at 54th place in the top 200 Universities in Europe.

Internationally, the University of Granada is firmly committed to its participation in the calls of the Framework Programme of the European Union. For the duration of the last two Framework Programmes, the UGR has obtained for FP7 a total of 67 projects, with total funding of 18.029 million euros, and for H2020, 119 projects with a total funding of around 29.233 million euros.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group:

The Research Group "New Therapies Applied to Research in Biomedicine" (CTS 107) is a multidisciplinary group with a total of 19 basic and clinical researchers (doctors, clinical oncologists, biochemists, nanotechnologists, biologists, pharmacists, biotechnologists and bioinformatics). Our Group has stable relationship with others Biomedicine and Cancer Centers (Switzerland, UK, Italy and Portugal, among others) and pharmaceutical companies (ROCHE-FARMA S.A and ESTEVE S.L.) and has a clear vocation for clinical application of the results to improve the quality of cancer patient life. Our research activity, continuously funded since 1990, is currently focused on three research lines: 1) New biomarkers for cancer detection, 2) New strategies for cancer treatment: nanotechnology and gene therapy and 3) Cancer and Nutrition. We has obtained relevant achievements published in high impact journals (see results in web), among which we can highlight some that has been patented: 1) to discover new (RNA, proteins and recently metabolites) tumor markers for pancreatic cancer (international patents WO 2014/076342 and WO/2014/198995 and solicited patent P201930559), 2) to determine the application of sigma ligands against cancer (patent WO/2017/21176), 3) to develop of new nanodrugs with doxorubicin and 5-FU in collaboration with the Hospital Virgen de las Nieves which were patented (WO 2012/104461A1 and PCT/ES2014/070941) and 4) to develop for the first time in the world antitumor therapies using the suicide Gef and E genes (WO2015/011332 A1 and W02009/133220).

Project description:

Our Project is named BIO-PAN-CAN. Its aim is to use a massive sequencing technique in peripheral blood samples from patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAD) to determine a sensitive and specific biomarker which can be clinically used to its early detection.

PAD diagnosis usually occurs in an advance stage with the presence of tissue infiltration or metastasis that make the tumour unresectable. In fact, the PAD prognosis is very poor with survival rates of 5% at the first 5 years. In this context, massive sequencing technology allows the simultaneously analysis of thousands of genes in cancer samples in a fast, reproducible and less and less expensive way.

Previous results of our Group demonstrated that the gene expression in peripheral blood of patients with PAD show a different expression pattern from that presented in healthy subjects and that this pattern can be used for its diagnosis. The pattern includes genes such as IRAK3 and CLEC4D (WO/2014/198995). In this ambitious, multidisciplinary (Information Technologies Research Centre and Biomedical Research Centre from Granada) and multicentric Project, five General Hospitals participate to assure the number of samples (peripheral blood) in order to 1) obtain total RNA and carry out RNASeq, 2) analyse big-data and determine pattern of differentially expressed genes; 3) carry out a blind validation study of the differential expression profile by digital PCR, and 4) establish the correlation between proposed markers and clinical-pathological variables of patients with ADP. The success of the Project will allow to obtain a new tool to the ADP early diagnosis that could represent a great clinical advance due to the possibility of starting treatment earlier improving the prognosis of these patients.

Research Area:

• Information Science and Engineering (ENG)
• Life Sciences (LIFE)

For a correct evaluation of your candidature, please send the documents below to Professor José Carlos Prados Salazar (jcprados@ugr.es):

• CV
• Letter of recommendation (optional)