
The IIS Aragón and the Alcampo Foundation launch a program to promote healthy and sustainable eating in childhood
September 30, 2022Eugenio Rodríguez Pascual Foundation. Call for Biomedical Research Grants.
October 3, 2022The University of Zaragoza has celebrated, once again, the European Night of Researchers, with activities in Zaragoza, Huesca and Teruel. The event, which took place last Friday, September 30, in 370 European cities simultaneously, aims to show the most human side of science, bring the figure of researchers closer to citizens so that they can learn about their work and the benefits it brings to society, as well as promoting the choice of a scientific career among students, eliminating gender barriers.
With this same spirit, once again this year, the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón) took to the streets to disseminate its research projects. On this occasion, Cecilia Pesini and Rocío Bayona, from Molecular Oncology Group, together with the Research Assistance Service Unit of University of Zaragoza, offered the DNA workshop 'Identifying biological contaminating agents', related to water pollution and its dangers to health. There are many types of contamination: with chemistry, such as contamination with a metal; or biological contamination, which occurs by microorganisms or bacteria. These living beings that contaminate water all have genetic material (DNA) that can be detected by a method that has become well known thanks to the pandemic, PCR. In order to analyze this material, it must first be extracted from water and isolated, and in the workshop they showed how to isolate this DNA from strawberries, in the same way they do it in the laboratory.

For their part, Marta Baselga and Ángela Abéjez, from the Surgical, clinical and experimental research group, titled their experiment 'Everything depends on the lens through which you look: what do cells tell us through the microscope?'. Based on the words of Saint-Exupéry, “what is essential is invisible to the eye”, cells are also invisible to the direct vision of the human eye. But what do cells tell through a microscope? It depends on the lens you look through. In this dissemination, the IIS Aragon researchers explained to the attendees how far they can look using optical miscroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy.
In this edition, in addition to enjoying the dissemination of the work of the researchers, the IIS Aragón team has also done so by sharing space and experiments with the Research Assistance Service of the University of Zaragoza.