CBGP postdoctoral researchers succeeded at the major European Congress on Allergy and Clinical Immunology by winning two awards

Jaime Tomé Amat and María Garrido Arandia, Postdocs at the Plant Allergens group led by Araceli Díaz Perales, won awards for the best poster presentation and the best poster discussion at the 38th EAACI congress held in Lisbon.

During the 38th EAACI congress held in Lisbon between 1st and 5th June 2019, researchers and clinical specialists in allergy and immunology from around the world met at the largest and most important annual event organized by the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI).

Jaime Tomé-Amat, with poster entitled “Study of the effects of Pru p 3 sensitization in the MALT”, prepared in collaboration with Master’s student Diego Pazos-Castro, got a prize for The best poster presentation. María Garrido-Arandia, on the other hand, won a prize for the best poster discussion. She presented work related to “Alt a 1 induces immune response in bronchial epithelial cells through SLC22A17”.

Jaime obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2007, where later on he obtained a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2012 under the supervision of Javier Lacadena. He has an extensive international postdoctoral experience in prestigious research centres, such as Carl Batt's group at Cornell University (NY, USA) and Joseph Ashour's group at Mount Sinai Hospital (NY, USA). Since 2017, Jaime is a Postdoc at the Plant Allergens CBGP group. He is responsible for the development of in vitro and in vivo models for the study of allergic sensitization pathways and also monitors the development of FOOD-AL project, in which different technological approaches are being developed to detect food allergens and set an immunotherapy strategy to improve allergic patients’ quality of life.

María obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2010. Later on she obtained her PhD in Biotechnology and Genetic Resources of Plants and Associated Microorganisms in Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in 2016 under the supervision of Araceli Díaz Perales and Luis Fernández Pacios. Since then, she developed a prolific scientific career as a Postdoc at the Plant Allergens CBGP group, reflected in more than 20 articles in Q1 journals and different research excellence awards in the recent years. She is responsible for biochemical, immunological and structural characterization of allergenic proteins combining experimental and computational work focused on docking and molecular dynamics calculations. María also monitors the development of Allerscreening EU project, in which a novel in vitro component-resolved diagnostic system is being developed for use in clinical food allergy diagnosis.