Laura García Rico received the prize for her work “The Role of Functional Cytomics in Cancer Immunotherapy and Leukemia Research” carried out with Jordi Juncà, Jorge Bardina, Àngel Bistué i Rovira, Michael D. Ward, Jolene A. Bradford and Jordi Petriz. She was presented with the award by Julia Almeida Parra, President of the SIC and researcher at the Cancer Research Centre in Salamanca.

The award-winning study explored how functional cytometry can offer new information for research and the evaluation of leukemia as an answer to the limitations of flow cytometry immunophenotyping, specifically in the case of leukemia stem cells (LSC). It describes new methods based on how research based on functional cytometry applied to the study of LSC and how the prediction of responses to treatments for cancer and immunotherapy can be applied to clinical practice.

The conclusion is that these new approaches provide new perspectives for research and evaluation of the disease and give a better picture of the complexities and challenges in analysing LSC associated with resistance to cancer. This is important for the development of trials to determine the moment to start treatment and whether or not immunotherapy will be effective against cancer in each case

XVI SIC Conference The SIC conference is a biennial event, where professionals and specialists from the public and private sector meet to share the advances in the field of cytometry. This year the programme centred primarily on evolution of the technology, which has increased the scope of flow cytometry, both for research and healthcare.