LAURA VALLE

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Laura Valle has dedicated her scientific career to the identification of the genetic causes of cancer predisposition and the better characterization of new hereditary cancer syndromes, which has led to her consolidation as world expert in the subject. In this field, her most relevant contributions have been the description of several candidate genes potentially responsible for hereditary colon cancer; the evaluation of the TGBRII allele-specific expression as a possible predisposing factor to colorectal cancer; and the molecular and clinical characterization of several hereditary cancer syndromes, which has had a very relevant impact in the translation into genetic diagnosis and counseling in cancer.

 

She obtained Bachelor's degrees in Biology (2000) and Biochemistry (2001) from the University of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain). After obtaining her Ph.D. at the Spanish Cancer Research Center (CNIO) in 2006 under the mentorship of Dr. Miguel Urioste, she joined the group of Dr. Albert de la Chapelle at the Comprehensive Cancer Center of the Ohio State University (USA). In 2009 she joined the Hereditary Cancer Program (Dr. Gabriel Capellá, Director) of the Catalan Institute of Oncology, IDIBELL (Barcelona, Spain), where she currently carries out her research on hereditary colorectal cancer.

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As Principal Investigator, she has lead >30 scientific articles and reviews (corresponding author) and has secured continued funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. She has been awarded with a L'Oréal-UNESCO "for women in science" research award (2013), a Ramón y Cajal contract (2010-2015), and funding from the I3 program for the stabilization of doctors (2017-2019). In 2012 she obtained the accreditation in Human Genetics and the National Award to the most outstanding young researcher in Human Genetics, both awarded by the Spanish Association of Human Genetics. In 2015 she received the second prize of the RTICC award on cooperative research in oncology for the identification of FAN1 as a hereditary colon cancer gene. That same year she received several social awards in recognition of her excellent scientific work and professional career. In 2020, she received the CIBERONC Best Female Researcher award. She is elected executive board member of the Spanish Association of Human Genetics (2018-2021) and board member of the European Society of Human Genetics (2018-2022). 

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