On November 11, Manel Esteller of the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research (IDIBELL), received the Research Award in Molecular Biology 2009 granted by the Carmen and Severo Ochoa Foundation for his contributions in the field of cancer epigenetics, i.e. the environmental factors that regulate gene activity.

The Dr. Josef Steiner Cancer Research Foundation, which encourages those individuals who have contributed to basic knowledge of cancer by their systematic research work and honours outstanding cancer research, also awarded Dr. Esteller the Dr. Josef Steiner Cancer Research Award 2009 on October 2 at the University of Bern, Switzerland, for his studies on cancer metastasis.

Esteller is responsible for highly significant findings in the field of Cancer Epigenetics, demonstrating the importance of tumor-suppressor genes silencing for the development and progression of cancer tumors. Esteller's work has contributed to demonstrate the importance of external factors in the direct modification of genes for regulatory purposes, and his extensive scientific work shows how the epigenetic modifications of hereditary material may contribute to the development of the processes of aging and cancer. A recent study led by Esteller and published in the Cancer Research journal on 1 November, shows that leukemia and lymphoma cells lack a molecule essential for the biological clock, a finding that can have a significant impact on the development of the disease (abstract available at http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/69/21/8447).

Manel Esteller (Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain, 1968) graduated in Medicine with Honours from the University of Barcelona in 1992, where he also obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics of Endometrial Carcinoma in 1996. He was an Invited Researcher at the School of Biological and Medical Sciences at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) focusing his research interests on the molecular genetics of inherited breast cancer.

After leading the CNIO Cancer Epigenetics Laboratory for 7 years, since October 2008, Dr Esteller is the Director of the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program at the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research (IDIBELL), Leader of the Cancer Epigenetics Group, Professor of Genetics at the School of Medicine of the University of Barcelona, and ICREA Research Professor.