CiMUS of the USC recognised by the Real Academia Galega de Ciencias

• One of the honourable mentions of the Ernesto Viéitez Cortizo 2023 Research Awards went to the team coordinated by María Jesús González.

The Real Academia Galega de Ciencias (RAGC) held the Ernesto Viéitez Cortizo 2023 Research Awards ceremony yesterday. One of the two honourable mentions went to the team of María Jesús González, from the CiMUS of the USC, for a work that delves into the control of glucose metabolism.
The group from the singular centre shared a mention with Marcos Ortega's team from the University of A Coruña (UDC), for the use of artificial intelligence to improve medical imaging. The first prize in this edition went to the group of researcher Soledad Muniategui, also from the UDC, for a method for the identification of microplastics.

Important advances in diabetes

The work coordinated by María Jesús González studies the control of glucose metabolism. The maintenance of blood glucose levels is essential for the correct functioning of the organism, so that alterations in its maintenance and regulation are at the root of the development of important diseases such as diabetes, which affects more than 5 million people in Spain. In this line, they achieved significant advances in the control of a fundamental protein in this process, PCK1, which represents an important step in the design of new therapies for the treatment of diabetes. The results of this work were published in the scientific journal Cell Metabolism, a leader in the field of endocrinology, metabolism and cell biology, which also chose this work as one of the 10 most important papers published in 2023 on diabetes and glucose metabolism.