Manuela García emphasised the Balearic Government’s firm commitment to medical research and innovation.
This morning, Son Espases University Hospital presented the 2024 Research Awards, which aim to promote the scientific activity of professionals of all categories at the health centre and reward excellence in this field. The Son Espases awards and grants for research are an annual initiative of the Research Committee.
The 2024 edition of the awards was worth 36,634 euros, divided into two categories: the best scientific publication, which rewards the article published in a journal with the highest impact factor, and the best pilot project, which aims to support projects that can be funded in external state and international calls for proposals.
The award ceremony was attended by the Regional Minister of Health, Manuela García; the Director General of the Health Service, Javier Ureña; the Director General of Health Research, Training and Accreditation, Vicenç Juan; the Managing Director of Son Espases, Cristina Granados; the Scientific Director of IdISBa, Antònia Barceló; the President of the Research Commission, Antonio Oliver, and the Coordinator of the Research Unit, Borja García-Cosío.
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Son Espases awards the 2024 Research Prizes
During her speech, the Regional Minister of Health, Manuela García, expressed ‘my deepest gratitude to the researchers, healthcare professionals and teams who work tirelessly every day to make Son Espases University Hospital a benchmark in medical innovation and in the care of people’. In this regard, the minister emphasised that ‘the Balearic Government has a firm commitment to research and training during this term of office, which will be the fundamental pillars on which we will build a modern, high-quality public health system’.
To this end, the Regional Ministry of Health will increase the budget of the Directorate General for Health Research, Training and Accreditation and the Balearic Islands Institute for Health Research (IdISBa) by 6% by 2025. She also announced that in February the new Son Espases Clinical Trials Unit will be launched, ‘a decisive step towards increasing the number of Phase I and Phase II clinical trials’, she reiterated, as well as a call for new training grants for non-doctoral research staff in two modalities: pre-doctoral training contracts and clinical research staff.
In this year’s edition, the prize for the best scientific publication was awarded to the pre-doctoral researcher IdISBa-HUSE Maria Berman Riu for the article ‘Dysfunctional mitochondria, disrupted levels of reactive oxygen species, and autophagy in B cells from common variable immunodeficiency patients’, published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology; in the category of residents, to María Santés Bertó, of the Clinical Analysis Service, for the article ‘Biological variation of methylmalonic acid in urine in Spanish population’, published in the journal Clinica Chimica Acta; in the category of pre-doctoral researchers, to Laura Cànaves Gómez, IdISBa-HUSE researcher, for the article ‘Effect of obstructive sleep apnea during pregnancy on fetal development: gene expression profile of cord blood’, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, and to Carla Suárez Castillejo, from the Pneumology Service, for the article “Cardiopulmonary complications after pulmonary embolism in COVID-19”, published in the same journal. In addition, in the category of other healthcare disciplines, the award went to Regina Cortés Aguilar, from the Adult Day Hospital, for the article entitled ‘Evaluation of different screening tools for detection of malnutrition in hospitalised patients’, published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing.
The following pilot projects have been awarded: ‘New biomarkers for the differential diagnosis of asymptomatic bacteriuria vs. true urinary tract infection’, by M. Isabel Fullana Barceló; ‘Evaluation of the T follicular helper T lymphocyte population type 13 (Tfh13) and T follicular regulatory (Tfr) in children with anaphylaxis and hypersensitivity to cow’s milk and egg proteins’, by José Antonio Gil Sánchez; ‘Phase I dose-escalation clinical trial of definitive single dose stereotactic body radiotherapy in patients with low-risk hormone receptor-positive and HER2-negative breast cancer not suitable or who refuse surgery. DESERT I trial’, by Jon Gadea Quinteiro; “Evaluation of the evolution of the inflammatory profile in patients with hidradenitis suppurativa after treatment with immunomodulatory biological drugs: adalimumab and secukinumab”, by Inés Gracia Darder; ’Assessment of sarcopenia in post-ICU patients: Usefulness of muscle ultrasound and albumin/fibrinogen index as prognostic tools’, by Julen Armendariz Gayraud; ‘Liquid biopsy by determination of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA in blood and saliva in the follow-up of patients with HPV-associated squamous carcinoma of the oropharynx’, by Marina Ortolà Miralles, and “Protocol for the evaluation of sleep quality in nursing professionals at the Hospital Universitario Son Espases (Nurse Sleep HUSE)”, by José Ángel Rubiño Díaz.
Balance of research activity at Son Espases University Hospital in 2024
During the awards ceremony, the president of the Research Commission, Antonio Oliver, presented the balance of research activity at Son Espases during the period 2023-2024.
In the last year, a total of 436 articles have been published in scientific journals, with a cumulative impact factor of 3,228 points, a figure that exceeds those of previous years. In terms of obtaining competitive funding for research, in 2024 the Hospital was awarded six FIS projects from the Carlos III Health Institute, two grants to incorporate human resources into research, a research project on rare diseases and an additional project from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. In addition, two projects funded by Australia and the United Kingdom were obtained in 2024. The total amount achieved with public funding amounts to 4,936,868 euros. Finally, with regard to the commercial clinical trials carried out at the centre, 66 contracts have been signed with the pharmaceutical industry during 2024, for a total amount of 1,626,866 euros.