Sara García Alonso | |
Birth Place: | León, Spain |
Occupation: | Scientist |
Workplaces: | Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (2019–) |
Thesis Title: | Anticuerpos conjugados a fármacos frente a receptores ErbB: Nuevas indicaciones y mecanismos de resistencia |
Thesis Year: | 2018 |
Thesis Url: | https://gredos.usal.es/bitstream/10366/137341/1/IUBMCC_GarciaAlonso_Anticuerpo.pdf |
Module: |
Sara García Alonso (born 1989) is a Spanish cancer researcher and reserve ESA astronaut. Since 2019, she has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre. In 2022, she was chosen as a reserve astronaut in the European Astronaut Corps.
García attended University of León, where she earned a bachelor's degree in biotechnology in 2012 and a master's degree in biomedical and biological research in 2013.[1]
As a doctoral candidate at University of Salamanca, García conducted research on cancer medicine as a university research assistant for the Spanish National Research Council. She earned a doctorate cum laude in the nuclear biology of cancer and translational medicine in the university's in 2018,[2] [3] advised by Atanasio Pandiella Alonso. Her doctoral dissertation focused on mechanisms of resistance to antibody-drug conjugates in ErbB receptors[4] and it won her the university's Outstanding Doctorate Award the following year.
Since 2019, she has been working as a postdoctoral researcher on drug discovery and experimental oncology at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre, where she has led a project to discover drugs for lung cancer and pancreatic cancer in the laboratory of Mariano Barbacid.[5] Her research has focused on RAF1 selective degraders as a therapeutic target, in order to combat certain forms of cancers.[6] She participated in a 6-month training programme at IE Business School, in Madrid, in 2021. She has volunteered for the, a nonprofit organisation.
The European Space Agency (ESA) selected García as a reserve astronaut for the 2022 selection of astronauts of the European Astronaut Corps.[7] [8] García and fellow astronaut candidate, both natives of León, Spain, are the first Spaniards selected by the ESA since Pedro Duque joined the European Astronaut Corps in 1992.[9] They were selected from more than 22,500 candidates across Europe. As a reserve astronaut, García will continue her current job, and will begin training if found to be an ideal candidate for a future space mission.
García was born in León, Spain, in 1989. In addition to her biomedical research, she has worked as a personal trainer and a nutrition coach.