Congratulations to Dr Fatima Valdes Mora, one of the winners in Spain’s recent Hechos de Talento (Made of Talent) competition. In winning, she becomes the face of her native country’s talent in Medicine and Science.

The Hechos de Talento campaign is an initiative organised by Clear Channel and ESIC Business and Marketing School (Spain), along with a number of media companies and communication groups. The campaign aims to raise Spain’s global reputation and image by reminding the world that the Spanish are made of talent. Dr Valdes Mora – or Fa, as she is known at the Garvan Institute in Sydney, where she leads the Histone Variants research group – is one of ten winners, and the overall winner of the Medicine and Science category. The winners were announced at an event in Fa’s home town of Madrid earlier this month and the marketing campaign begins in 2016, with Fa and the other winners appearing on billboards around the world, including Australia.

Fa completed her PhD in 2008 at Spanish National Research Council (CSIC, Spain) and moved to Australia in 2009 to join the Garvan Institute in Sydney. She is a NBCF/Cure Cancer Australia Foundation postdoctoral fellow, and receives funding from the NHMRC and the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. Fa established the Histone Variants group within the Genomics and Epigenetics Division at the Garvan in 2013. The group’s focus is on the molecular mechanisms underlying histone regulated aberrant gene transcription in cancer, with particular interests in prostate cancer and endocrine resistant breast cancer.

While the Hechos de Talento campaign enhances Spain’s image, we are pleased that Fa’s win will also raise the global profile of Australian epigenetics research. We congratulate her on this wonderful accomplishment and look forward to seeing her face on billboards and buses – as well as hearing more about her cancer research developments!