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The European Research Council has awarded Eduard Batlle a Starting Grant for outstanding young researchers
Eduard Batlle, head of the Oncology Programme at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and principal investigator with the Colorectal Cancer Laboratory, will receive funding from the European Research Council (ERC) to perform a project on the progression of colon cancer. The ERC has awarded 37-year-old Eduard Batlle a Starting Grant over the next five years. ERC Starting Grants form part of a highly selective grant programme which seeks to strengthen cutting-edge research done by up-and-coming young investigators. In this first call, the ERC has judged approximately 9,200 projects, of which only 3% have met the demanding criteria established by the evaluation panel.
Batlle’s study will address several features regarding the origin and spread of colon cancer. The evaluation panel has made special mention of the multidisciplinary approach of the research – it includes techniques used in cellular biology, genomics and transgenesis -, the potential to discovery new treatments, the innovation of the approach and the excellent design of the proposal. The panel has also highly valued Batlle’s professional trajectory, the setting in which he will perform the research and capacity to collaborate with clinical laboratories.
Born in Barcelona in 1970, Eduard Batlle has been a senior ICREA researcher within IRB Barcelona since 2004. After earning a PhD in Biology from the University of Barcelona, his post-doc training was done first in the Institut für Molekularbiologie und Tumorforschung, in Marburg, Germany, and from 2000 to 2004 in the Netherlands Institute for Developmental Biology, in Utrecht, with the internationally renowned investigator Hans Clevers. Batlle has published articles in the most prestigious biomedical journals, with an impact factor over 20, among these special mention is given to the cover of the journal Cell and several articles in Nature, which are highly cited. The most recent article by Batlle was published in Nature Genetics in October 2007. In 2006, Batlle was awarded the “Debiopharm Life Sciences Award for Outstanding Research in Oncology”, given by the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.
About IRB Barcelona
The Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) pursues a society free of disease. To this end, it conducts multidisciplinary research of excellence to cure cancer and other diseases linked to ageing. It establishes technology transfer agreements with the pharmaceutical industry and major hospitals to bring research results closer to society, and organises a range of science outreach activities to engage the public in an open dialogue. IRB Barcelona is an international centre that hosts 400 researchers and more than 30 nationalities. Recognised as a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence since 2011, IRB Barcelona is a CERCA centre and member of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST).
