CiMUS, on the move against cancer
Santiago de Compostela took action against cancer this past weekend with the Asociación Española contra el Cáncer (AECC), mobilising more than 800 people who walked to raise awareness of the importance of research to advance in the treatment of this disease.
The CiMUS of the USC did not want to miss this event, joining the Andaina, in addition to the dissemination fair "Ciencia para todos" that took place within the framework of this initiative with practical workshops to bring science to adults and children, teaching how to extract DNA from fruits; to learn about the maternal genome through mitochondrial DNA; the effects of the sun, tobacco or diet in the prevention of cancer or to approach the techniques with which cancer is studied.
The Genomics & Bioinformatics group of this USC Singular Centre was in charge of giving the workshop on DNA extraction from fruit to show how the material containing genetic/hereditary information is extracted from fruit.
The second workshop was given by the Mobile Genomes group, which divided its workshop into three parts dedicated to cancer prevention: the long-term effects of the sun on the skin and the importance of sun protection, the effects of smoking on the lungs and the importance of a good diet through the food pyramid.
The third scientific workshop focused on mitochondrial DNA to show how it is possible to learn from the maternal genome through the MitoPhenomics Lab. The last workshop dealt with different techniques used to study cancer, in which researchers from various groups at the centre (Cancer & Virus lab, Gene Regulatory Control in Disease and Molecular Imaging Biomarkers and Pharmacokinetic Modelling) explained their lines of research and the different methods used.
All CiMUS research groups participating in this conference are beneficiaries of funding from the AECC, either with seed projects or AECC lab, laboratory internship grants and AECC pre-doctoral contracts. The research they carry out would be impossible without the help of the AECC. Thank you for counting on us for another year.
