Ileana Quiñones
Principal investigator responsible for the coordination and management of one of the main BCBL’ translational research projects leading to the development and refinement of protocols for intervention with brain tumour patients who require surgery (“Brain surgery with awake patients”). Among my responsibilities as PI are the coordination with the neurosurgery unit of the Hospital Universitario Cruces Bilbao, the identification of weaknesses in the intervention protocols and the creation of tools that can be transferable to clinical practice. This project, with its non-invasive functional neuroimaging approach, will help to improve the benefit-to-risk ratio of brain surgery by increasing knowledge of how the brain is functionally modified in response to tumour growth. This would allow for better surgical planning on a patient-by-patient basis, by precisely informing about tumour localization and surrounding functional brain tissue, both before and after surgery. This project received the prize for the Best Health Technology Innovation awarded by the Spanish Technology and Health Foundation and the Spanish Federation of Healthcare Technology Companies in 2019 (https://www.euskadi.eus/gobierno-vasco/-/noticia/2019/euskadi-premio-a-la-mejor-innovacion-tecnologica-en-salud-impulsada-por-una-comunidad-autonoma/).
