Marisol Soengas (Agolada, Pontevedra, 1968) grew up with the advice of his father, a cabinetmaker: “Whatever you do, do it well”. And his mother’s insistence that in life “you have to work hard”.
Neither of them had any connection with the world of science. Not even remotely. But there are teachings that are worth their weight in gold, no matter where one dreams of flying.
Working tirelessly – which translates into many hours of work, perseverance and determination – Marisol is today one of the most prestigious researchers in the world in the fight against melanoma, the most common skin cancer. President of the Spanish Association for Cancer Research (ASEICA), she trained alongside another great figure: Margarita Salas and, after several years working in the United States and setting up her first laboratory there, she returned to Spain to lead the Melanoma Group of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), an international reference.
Having detected what would be diagnosed as breast cancer herself, and which she made public a few months ago, the Galician woman remains in high spirits and continues in the laboratory developing more effective therapies against a disease that affects an increasingly larger percentage of people, tirelessly seeking the necessary funding to get them ahead and praising women scientists She regrets that they are not yet on equal terms with their male colleagues. Her father can certainly be satisfied because, without a doubt, everything this woman is determined to do, she does very well.
Marisol, the eldest of three siblings, was born in Aldea do Monte, a very small town in Pontevedra, although she soon settled with her family in A Coruña, where her parents went to earn a living. She is remembered as a very curious girl She didn’t pay attention to dolls, but she loved books. The year the Three Wise Men brought her a chemistry set, the little girl knew that when she grew up she wanted to be a researcher and work in a laboratory.
And she started “doing elbows”. “Since I was in school I had ambitions to be the best. I remember a teacher in fourth grade who organised us into teams and devised a system of spaceships in which each group, according to their merits, would advance along the classroom wall. I wanted us to be the first to arrive and I encouraged and helped my classmates to achieve this,” she says.
When he received the award in 2009 María Josefa Wonenburger awardThe scientist had some kind words for that professor and other teachers who throughout her life taught her to strive for excellence. “Teachers sometimes don’t know the impact they can have,” she warns.
She studied the first three years of Biology at the University of A Coruña, always with her eyes set on research, and then decided to continue in Madrid to be able to access the Center for Molecular Biology, directed by the historic researcher Margarita Salas.
Despite her shyness, which she admits with a smile, Marisol did not lack courage to contact the director and tell her that she wanted to join her team. “My record was very good and she told me that the laboratory was full, but at the end of the meeting she told me that she was going to give me the opportunity,” she recalls. Thus, the Galician studied the fourth and fifth years while in the afternoons she went to work at the laboratory and thus managed to make her first publications before starting her thesis. “I learned a lot and, thanks to her example, The women in her group saw it as natural that a woman should run the laboratory.which has marked us forever.”
The Galician’s next step took her to the other side of the Atlantic. She was very clear that she wanted to go abroad and so in 1997 she arrived at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, where specialized in melanomaThere, the scientist says she also learned to take risks. “You realise that it is essential to raise new issues and think big, and I also learned to explain science, which is essential for obtaining funding and leading projects,” she explains.
Marisol already traveled to New York with her husband, the scientist José Antonio Esteban, and both continued the adventure later at the University of Michigan, where the Galician He set up his own laboratory in one of the most important melanoma clinics in America“He was the one who accompanied me and looked for a laboratory where he could develop his work. Normally, we women are the ones who adapt and follow the men, but not in my case, which helped my career a lot,” she says, thankfully.
After eleven years away, in 2008 Marisol was given the opportunity to return to Madrid to join the prestigious National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), where she heads the Melanoma Group, and she did not hesitate. “There comes a time when you have to decide whether to return or stay; we never really felt like Americans because there was a cultural component that didn’t fit us,” she says. “The day we arrived in Madrid, at half past ten at night, and we went to have a tapa in a bar full of people, we realised that that is really what we are,” she laughs.
Marisol says that during her entire time as a student and in Salas’ laboratory she never encountered unequal treatment because she was a woman: “She demanded the same from all of us and the respect she imposed when she entered a room was tangible.” However, micro-machismos appeared later, when she started her independent group. Even, she says, at the present time. “I encountered paternalistic treatment when I started in the United States, but the worst thing is that Even now, women still have to continue fighting for recognition. and even because of the use of vocabulary. It seems like a cliché but I can confirm that I have experienced the typical: ‘Dr X and Marisol’ and I am also a doctor!’, she warns. “There are still many biases and women advance more slowly in positions of responsibility,” she adds. To fight against this inequality and promote the work of women cancer researchers in Spain Marisol promoted the “ASEICA-Mujer” working group.
The researcher has also found that social networks, especially Twitter, are an effective communication tool. “I think it is very important for disseminating the work of other colleagues and for accessing data, information about conferences… It is a good way to give visibility to your work and for protest actions,” she says.
In her private life, Marisol is very discreet. However, last February she decided to use this network to make known a painful and complex news: She had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was beginning treatment.“Making it public is difficult because you expose yourself a lot, but having always defended patients and being president of ASEICA, I felt I had the responsibility to give a voice to people in the same situation as me, who are often afraid and hide what is happening to them,” she reflects.
Marisol has not stopped working despite the chemotherapy, the side effects, the tiredness, the worry… She says that she is physically well and is grateful for the numerous displays of affection she receives every day. She is not in favour of overly optimistic speeches or turning patients into “fighters in a battle”. We have heard her insist that “we cannot control the tumour cells or fight against ourselves. We can be encouraged, I am, but as a scientist I am especially aware of the complexity of the disease, of the mutations, of the fact that we often do not know how it can evolve”.
She says she started exercising at 50 and still does. “Before I used to run 10 kilometers and at some point during the treatment I couldn’t do 1, but now I do 5, I also lift weights, spinning…and I’m not going to stop as long as I can, because the gym frees me mentally,” he says.
Recently, after a break since he was diagnosed with the disease, he has resumed traveling to attend conferences. He also visited a mural of the group in Vigo. Expostas.org He admits that he was very excited “because of the care and attention with which it was prepared, and it was not easy on a complicated wall.” “I am lucky to have a family that supports me a lot, friends to joke with and a fantastic research team. I want to take advantage of the energy I have and try to help others.“, he adds.
Bringing children and young people closer to what women who research cancer are like and how they have become pioneers is a task that Marisol is especially proud of. She has been doing it since “Get to know them” initiative, from ASEICAwhich she promoted. “Teenagers are surprised that a female scientist is a traveller, climbs or goes parachuting; they have the stereotypical image of a serious and boring professional who doesn’t leave her laboratory and that is not very motivating; we have broken those moulds and shown them that female scientists are great team leaders,” she points out.
Soengas is a member of the National Academy of Pharmacy and the Academy of Sciences of Galicia, among others, and warns that Women remain a minority in these institutions“We need to make an effort to promote women and find ways for them to develop their talents without becoming overwhelmed, which can cause them to reject the positions themselves,” she says.
In the midst of this busy life, Marisol always has a space for her Galicia, the place that revitalizes her. She loves the sea, “even my skin changes when I get here,” she says. And A Coruña is her favorite sunset, with which she has once again bid farewell to summer.
The pioneers: Jane Cooke, promoter of chemotherapy
Jane Cooke. / FDV
Jane Cooke Wright (USA, 1919-2013) was descended from a family of prestigious doctors: his father was one of the first black people to graduate from Harvard Medical School and the first to be hired by a New York hospital.
Jane graduated with honors in medicine in 1945 and began her career as a researcher alongside her father at the cancer center he had founded and directed in Harlem. It was there that began researching compounds with possible uses in chemotherapy which, at that time, was considered a last resort rather than a treatment.
She was a pioneer in the use of tumor biopsies for testing substances, with the aim of finding effective elements for a specific type of tumor. In addition, in 1964 she developed a catheter system as a non-surgical method to deliver anti-cancer drugs to hard-to-reach areas.
She was one of seven members, and the only woman, who fundaron la American Society of Clinical Oncology to meet the specific needs of doctors with cancer patients.
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