Research Program. Precision Nutrition and Cancer

Director: Dr. Ana Ramírez de Molina

Objectives:  The objective of this Program is to study the molecular bases explaining how diet and lifestyle constitute key factors in cancer prevention or exert essential  unction as coadjutants for cancer treatments during and after therapy. 

Metabolic reprogramming is a hallmark of cancer in which nutritional strategies might play a key role. Knowledge of the precise (molecular) mechanism of action of bioactive compounds present in foods, the metabolic profile and its impact in the personal susceptibility to develop cancer or to respond to specific treatments, as well as the development of personalized nutritional strategies for specific conditions, will result in highly effective products and strategies for an integrative precision approach for cancer patients. 

Dr. Ana Ramírez de Molina

IMDEA Food Director, Director of the Precision Nutrition Program and Group leader of the Molecular Oncology Group.

Dr. Ana Ramírez de Molina has developed her scientific career in the field of lipid metabolism, molecular oncology, nutrition and cancer. She has worked as an associated researcher in the Traslational Oncology Unit CSIC-UAM-La Paz Hospital (Madrid), and has performed long postdoctoral stays at Cancer Research UK Centre for Therapeutics (London) and the Molecular Pathology Division of the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York).

She has published more than 60 scientific articles in her research field, is co-inventor of 6 patents in different phases of exploitation by a biotechnology company and has supervised 6 PhD Thesis. Several of her patents promoted the creation of a
spin-off company from CSIC focused on the development of new tumour markers and therapies in Cancer in which she was former Director of Research, Development and Innovation for more than 3 years. She joined IMDEA Food Institute in 2010, where she leads the Programe of Precision Nutrition and Cancer.

In 2002 she was awarded with the prize Young Researchers MSD, in 2003 the extraordinary doctorate recognition as the best Thesis of her promotion in Molecular Biology, and in 2016 the 8th of March distinction from the Community of Madrid as an outstanding woman in Science.

Since 2011 she has been the Coordinator of Research, Development and Transfer, and in 2022, she became the Institute Director after eight years as Deputy Director.

Email: ana.ramirez@imdea.org
Phone: +34 91 727 81 00, ext. 102

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