Rosa Suades has been awarded by the institution Funcas with one of the Enrique Fuentes Quintana Awards for the best doctoral theses. The awards ceremony took place on 29 November and was presided over by Jorge Sáinz, Universities General Secretary, and Carlos Ocaña, General Manager of Funcas.

The Enrique Fuentes Quintana Awards are divided into four specific areas: Social Sciences; Health Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics, Architecture and Physics, and Humanities. Of 165 doctoral theses presented in the category of Health Sciences, Rosa Suades received the award for her work “Role of microparticles in atherothrombosis”, supervised by Lina Badimon and Teresa Padró and carried out at the Cardiovascular Research Centre, joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Catalan Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences (ICCC). “Acknowledgments like this give the push, the strength and the motivation necessary to continue working and striving day by day”, says the doctor.

The prizewinning thesis provides the first evidence that circulating microparticles in blood and vascular cells are a rich source of information for the cardiovascular compartment. In this sense, microparticles appear as potential markers of atherothrombosis, a disease in which pre-existing atherosclerotic lesions form a thrombus. According to Suades, “this research will allow the development of new clinical strategies in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases with a predictive, preventive and personalized value, as well as the discovery of potential therapeutic targets”.

The students Felipe Valencia, also from Pompeu Fabra University; Guillermo Suárez, from Carlos III University of Madrid, and César Rina, from University of Navarra, received the awards in the categories of Social Sciences; Engineering, Mathematics, Architecture and Physics, and Humanities, respectively.

Funcas has rewarded the excellence of work in economic and social research in its academic format, the doctoral thesis, since year 2007. To date, it had granted the prize in just one area, the Social Sciences, but as of this year, the Foundation has expanded to three new categories, Health Sciences; Engineering, Mathematics or Physics, and the Humanities. The aim is to reward the effort, the commitment and the hard work required to accomplish a doctoral thesis. The prizes are endowed with five thousand euros and the publication of the thesis in the collection “Foundation Studies”.