Students from high school diploma who trained at the University of Navarra for the International Biology Olympiad have won three bronze medals at the international meeting , held in Taiwan.

The students - Pablo Hernández, Álvaro Gabaldón and Aitor López -, coming from schools in Madrid and Barcelona, received an intensive one-week training at the School de Ciencias and the research center Médica Aplicada (CIMA), where they attended workshops and theoretical lectures focused on the subject matter of the test.

This preparation was part of the award received by the finalists of the national phase, which took place in Granada between March 31 and April 3. Among them was Miguel Nuño Viguria from Navarre, from high school San Ignacio de Pamplona, who will participate, along with three other Spanish students, in the Iberoamerican Biology Olympiad, from September 4 to 11 in Costa Rica.

For all of them the School of Sciences and the CIMA designed a program with a scientist tutor by student. They worked with him in the mornings in different areas of the research center Applied Medicine. Likewise, in the School of Sciences they carried out practices in Microbiology with professors of the department, focused on Immunology, culture analysis, Gram staining, recognition of bacterial populations, etc. In addition, at the end of the sessions there was a time to solve doubts and questions from students.

Also within the syllabus for the test, the students faced practices of Biochemistry -on the use of the spectrophotometer, the graphical elaboration of absorbance and the calculation of concentration of an unknown sample -; practices of Plant Histology -to become familiar with cuts and handling of the microscope, stains, etc.; and practices of Zoology, where they observed skulls and dissected an earthworm.

In the national phase of Biology also participated the Navarrese students Ana Castiella García, from high school San Ignacio de Pamplona, and Alejandro Urdiciain Ezpeleta, from I.E.S. Marqués de Villena de Marcilla, who came second and third, respectively, in the regional phase.