• In its fourth year, the “la Caixa” program has now awarded 40 new grants for talented young scientists, to improve biomedical research in Spain.
• Candidates will be supported for four years while carrying out their PhD in a top Spanish biomedical research centre. 

Barcelona, July 27, 2012. In 2011, the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) received 10 of the prestigious PhD grants from the “la Caixa” International PhD Programme, which celebrated its award ceremony at the CaixaForum in Madrid last Wednesday (25 July). 
Grants are awarded for a period of four years, and students from anywhere in the world are eligible to apply. The other research centres in Barcelona that will host the PhD fellows are the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB), the Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), and the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO).
This award is highly competive: over 450 applications were considered this year, and the group leaders of the CRG personally interviewed 41 candidates. The Obra Social "la Caixa" provides an allocation of 1500€ net per month during the first two years of the thesis, and 1700€ for the following two years, and additionally pays for travel expenses and conference attendance.
The next 10 PhD students, selected during the 2012 call, will begin their PhD at the CRG in September:

• Gene Regulation, Stem Cells and Cancer Program:
  • Lorenzo Rinaldi (Italy). 
  • Francesco Sottile (Italy).
  • Gireesh Kumar Bogu (India).
• Bioinformatics and Genomics:
  • Arjun Ishwar (India)
  • Maria Chatzou (Greece)
• Cell and Developmental Biology:
  • Michael Maier (Germany)
  • Lisa Johnsen (Germany)
• Systems Biology:
  • Janet Ruth Melling (UK)
  • Avinash Khandelwal (India)
• Genes & Diseases :
  • Shalu Jhanwar (India)