At the ceremony, held on Friday November 5th at the Palau de la Generalitat, the Minister for Research and Universities, Honorable Mrs. Gemma Geis, considered the ten winners to be "the most tangible proof of the scientific talent we have in Catalonia".

These awards, which have been given since 1982, distinguish people and organizations for their outstanding contribution to the development of science and technology in Catalonia.

The research conducted by Dr. Esteller has made it possible to understand the contribution of epigenetic alterations to human disease, especially cancer, and to develop biomarkers of it, as well as new treatments.

Dr. Manel Esteller holds a degree in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Barcelona and a doctorate with a specialization in molecular genetics of endometrial carcinoma at the same University. He was a postdoctoral researcher and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Baltimore, USA), where he studied DNA methylation and its relationship to cancer. He led the Cancer Epigenetics

Laboratory of the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas (CNIO) in Madrid and returned to Catalonia in 2008 to direct the Epigenetics and Cancer Biology Program (PEBC) at the Bellvitge biomedical campus. Since 2019, he has been the Director of the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, within the framework of the Catalan Research Centers (CERCA).