Núria Malats

Núria Malats is the head of the Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Madrid, Spain. Malats graduated in Medicine in 1986 and got the MPH (1994), the PhD (1995), and the medical specialization in Preventive Medicine and Public Health (2002). During her PhD, she conducted experimental and epidemiological studies integrating molecular data with environmental exposures and clinical features of pancreatic cancer. From 1996-1998, she was visiting scientist in the IARC (WHO), Lyon, where she was trained in genetic epidemiology. Malats returned to Barcelona in 1998 with a Miguel Servet research contract from the National Health System, ISCIII. Before joining CNIO in September 2007, she was staff scientist at the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL-IMIM), where she led and participated in projects financed with national and international competitive funds and coordinated the National Cooperative Research Network on Bladder Cancer (RETICC EPICUR-RED). Malats did short stages in the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Bethesda, USA, in 2003 and in the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), Toronto, Canada, in 2013.

Her research primarily focuses on pancreatic and urinary bladder cancers. She is a PI and/or co-PI of major national and international studies where different levels of information are integrated, including omics data, both in relation to the development and progression of cancer. Malats has >300 scientific publications (h-index: 81) and is external peer reviewer of national and international funding agencies and of high impact scientific journals, as well as member of the Selection Committee of the National Research Agency ISCIII – FIS. Malats is PI of the CIBERONC Group (CB16/12/00452) and co-coordinator of the Training&Mobility Program. She has directed 8 doctoral theses (plus 4 on-going) and 21 minor theses. She has also coordinated and participated in teaching activities in undergraduate and graduate courses in several Spanish and foreign universities and delivered >100 invited lectures. Malats has also (co)organizated >30 national and international conferences, workshops, and meetings in the last 10 years.

Malats chaired the COST Action EUPancreas (BM1204). She was board member of ESUR and of the EAU Research Foundation. She is board member of the International Pancreatic Cancer Case Control Consortium (PanC4); and founder and board member of the Pancreatic Cancer Europe (PCE) Multistakeholder Platform. Among the outreaching activities, Malats is involved in increasing pancreatic cancer awareness in several communities and settings, including the European Parliament. Her proven organizational and managerial skills have been crucial to foster and position the Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology Group, CNIO, in the highly competitive and challenging international cancer research scenario.