BIO
Silvia González Acinas (Bilbao, 1971) is a researcher working for the Departamento de Biología Marina y Oceanografía, the Spanish National Research Center in Barcelona. She has an extensive track record that includes a five-year stay in MIT and high-impact publications in ‘Science,’ ‘PLOS Biology’ and ‘PNAS’.
PROJECT
González Acinas’ project studies marine contamination with a technique that the jury has considered highly innovative. She uses water samples taken from around the world by the Malaspina Expedition and detects the pollutants in it, not looking for substances as such, but the gene activity associated with their degradation; in other words, the traces of bacteria or the set of microorganisms capable of decomposing the pollutants.
Among the many possible uses of this project is to discover the bioremediation capacity of bacteria isolated from the ocean depths and the detection of methylmercury, a neurotoxin with damaging effects for human health, and whose presence is growing.