The association Española contra el Cáncer (AECC), through its Scientific Foundation, has awarded one of its grants to the biologist Idoya Lahortiga, from the area of Oncology of the research center Applied Medicine (CIMA) of the University of Navarra. The award is for a 2-year financial aid-contract to develop a work with an endowment of 60,000 euros.

The award-winning work , "Characterization Genetics of patients with acute myeloid leukemia", was directed by Dr. Mª Dolores Odero at position . The ceremony of submission of the AECC awards was held in Seville, presided over by the Prince and Princess of Asturias, the Minister of Health, Elena Salgado, and the President of the board of Andalusia, Manuel Chaves.

As Idoya Lahortiga explains, acute myeloid leukemias (AML) are "diseases that arise as a consequence of genetic alterations in a subject of hematopoietic progenitor cells (related to the training of blood cells). They are characterized by an uncontrolled proliferation of immature cells (blasts) that infiltrate the bone marrow and invade the peripheral blood and other organs. Their incidence is 2-3 cases per 100,000 population per year. They can occur at any age, but mainly affect adults and children under one year of age".

Survival at 5 years barely reaches 2%.

The researcher at CIMA of the University of Navarra points out that, in recent years, genetic analysis has provided essential information for the diagnosis and prognosis of this subject leukemia. However, "despite the advances made and the development of new therapies, the percentage of patients who relapse is high. The 5-year survival rate of patients with genetic alterations associated with poor prognosis is only 2%. Therefore, the characterization of genetic alterations in these patients and the identification of the genes involved will make it possible to define more precisely the prognosis of each patient and develop a more effective therapy".

The project aims to genetically characterize 300 samples of patients with AML in order to analyze the incidence of overexpression of two genes associated with poor prognosis in myeloid neoplasms (multiplication or abnormal growth of cells in a tissue of the organism). Based on this information, he will study the mechanism of neoplastic transformation of these two genes, as well as their relationship with that of some relevant genes in this subject of leukemias. For this work she will use cytogenetic and molecular Genetics techniques.

Idoya Lahortiga has been studying acute myeloid leukemia for 6 years. To develop her scientific work she received, in 2003, the only national scholarship that the José Carreras Foundation awards to researchers in the fight against this disease. Now, in order to extend his training he is going to carry out a stay at the department of Genetics Human at the University of Leuven (Belgium).