The LEO Foundation Award 2016 – Gold Award

Grantee: Dr. Amaya Virós

Amount: DKK 1,000,000

Grant category: LEO Foundation Awards

Year: 2016

Geography: United Kingdom

Presented to Dr. Virós who has made important contributions to the area of skin research by describing mechanisms behind the development of squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma. She has published in top-ranking scientific journals and received a number of prestigious awards, including a recent Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinician Scientist Fellowship to set up her laboratory at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute in the newly-built Manchester Cancer Research Centre, UK, which is based at The University of Manchester.

Dr. Virós will focus her future research on the under-researched area of skin cancer and ageing. Ageing skin appears to have unique properties and patterns of tumour development that may explain the surprising increase in aggressive primary melanoma and mortality from this disease. Her aim is to identify the factors in elderly people that make them more prone to developing melanoma and less likely to survive once they develop the disease.