A scientist from IPLA-CSIC wins the Natac National Award for Research in Natural Products

Natac Natural Ingredients (NAT), a biotechnology company specializing in the sustainable production of botanical extracts and omega-3 oils, has announced the jury’s decision for the Natac National Awards for Research in Natural Products.

In this first edition, Héctor Rodríguez López, senior scientist at the CSIC at the Institute of Dairy Products of Asturias (IPLA-CSIC), has won the award in the Established Researcher category, endowed with €10,000, thanks to the work “The microbiota metabolite, phloroglucinol, confers long-term protection against inflammation.”

Dr. Rodríguez López led this research together with Dr. Juan Anguita, an Ikerbasque researcher at CIC bioGUNE, in whose laboratory most of the work was carried out. The study involved collaboration from other laboratories and scientific services at the same center and at the CSIC (IPLA-CSIC, ICTAN-CSIC, CIAL-CSIC, CEBAS-CSIC, IFQ-CSIC), as well as from the Basque Government (Tecnalia and Neiker), the University of the Basque Country (EHU-UPV), the Complutense University of Madrid, and the University of Würzburg in Germany. The main co-authors of the work are Janire Castedo, Sarai Araujo, Diego Barriales, and Samuel Tanner Pasco.

Meanwhile, the runner-up award in the Established Researcher category, endowed with €3,000, has gone to Lucía Victoria Cassani Menéndez, from the Department of Analytical and Food Chemistry at the University of Vigo. “Machine learning-based assessment of sustainable extraction methodologies tackling the biotechnological exploitation of Arnica montana extracts” is the title of the awarded study, which involved collaboration with the REQUIMTE/LAQV group of the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (Portugal) and the group from the Department of Sustainable Food Processes at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy).

Finally, the jury has considered María de las Nieves Siles Sánchez deserving of the Young Researcher Award, endowed with €2,000, for her work “Novel bioactive extract from yarrow obtained by the supercritical antisolvent-assisted technique inhibits lipid metabolism in colorectal cancer.” The study by the now postdoctoral researcher at Aarhus University (Denmark) demonstrates the potential of novel extracts from Achillea millefolium obtained through sustainable technologies to modulate metabolic processes involved in colorectal cancer.