Researcher Miguel Baya, winner of the Zaragoza Academy of Sciences award
4 December, 2020
Covid pressure in Primary Care drops but doctors urge not to become complacent
4 December, 2020
She hopes to submit her thesis at the end of 2021, but, for now, Ana Pilar Tobajas de la Fuente (Zaragoza, 1993) has just won the 'Your Thesis in Three Minutes' contest.
He has just won the Award for Best Communication of a Doctoral Thesis organized by the Iberus Campus. How do you tell a thesis in three minutes?
But there is much more to his thesis.
To find out if you can get that hypoallergenic juice, we have developed tests that detect the proteins that cause the allergy, so we can check if the proteolysis treatment – which cuts the protein into smaller fragments that no longer cause a problem – works.
What if I asked you to now summarize your thesis in three sentences?
The first thing I would say is that research is improvement, because many times it is motivation, but other times it is disappointment because experiments never work out the first time and you have to draw strength from where you don't have it to move forward; The psychological aspect affects a lot in a doctoral thesis. Then, since the topic was a proposal of mine, the idea of a third-year girl really is a dream come true. And the third is that I hope this thesis becomes a product that you will see in the supermarket if any food industry is interested in developing this juice.
And you, how did you become interested in this topic?
Because in the second year of college I developed an allergy to the LTP protein. It was a joke, it was exam time and I read that nuts were good for your memory, so I bought walnuts and, within an hour of eating them, my face was swollen like a monster. Another day, thinking about counteracting all the time I spent sitting studying with something healthy, I bought some fruit juices and they gave me some unbearable stomach cramps, so I went to the allergist and they found out that I was allergic to peaches, apples, kiwis, and melons. , mustard, walnuts, pistachio, almond... Zucchini and eggplant I can't eat either. It's a shame that, with the number of allergy sufferers there are, bars have so little awareness. When you ask if the bravas sauce has mustard, they almost laugh at you and until I tell them that I would go straight to the hospital, they don't ask the kitchen.
Are there more and more allergies?
They are a big problem. There are many theories; It may be that our immune system is bored, that's true, because we are cleaner than we were before and we get less sick than our grandparents. Others blame pollution and it also happens, as with other diseases, that now everything is looked at and more are diagnosed.
Are many people allergic to fruits?
Allergies to eggs, milk, nuts... are better known, but 45% of food allergic reactions in Spain are due to fruits. People with allergies end up depriving themselves of certain things and that can lead to a nutritional deficit. These hypoallergenic juices could help nutritionally, apart from being able to give you the pleasure of drinking a juice without fear of a reaction. I would choose the peach one.
They say that the years of preparing the thesis are only lived for that. How are you doing?
There have been moments and moments. I try not to deprive myself of my hobbies: music and jota, I danced and I play the guitar and the guitarrico, although sometimes you have to prioritize. In the end at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine you make your little family. Now, with the pandemic, you are more limited to going to the laboratory to work and returning home, that social part has been lost. My thesis is a dream come true, but the fear is that, after these five years, I will end up working on something that has nothing to do with it.
