Daniel Pellicer (esquerra) and Alejandro Requena (dreta).

Daniel Pellicer Roig, master in Medical Biotechnology and doctoral candidate in Physiology of Rare Respiratory Diseases from the University of Valencia; and Alejandro Requena Menéndez, researcher at the Institute of Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio), a joint center of the UV and the CSIC, are two of the semi-finalists of the Spanish edition of Solo de Ciencia, the first Ibero-American contest of scientific monologues, promoted in Spain by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECyT).

This initiative's main objective is to promote the communication of science in Spanish, encouraging those who develop their studies or their professional careers in the field of science, technology and innovation to actively get involved in dissemination in settings usually far from this type of activities. The people selected as semi-finalists are 5 women and 7 men, aged between 23 and 35 years old and coming from research areas such as Humanities, Medicine, Molecular Biology, Chemistry or Environmental Sciences.

Salamanca, among others). In 2020 he was a finalist in FameLab, the largest scientific monologue competition in Spain. He currently spreads information about biotechnology and biomedicine on Twitter (@Dani_Pellicer) and YouTube on the Divudan channel, in which he is creating a series of documentaries to form professionals, patients and curious people, regarding minority diseases.

Alejandro Requena works on the application of the CRISPR-Cas tool in the diagnosis of DNA sequences and RNA in the I²SysBio. He trained in Synthetic Biology at the University of Valencia and his final degree work was on the construction of artificial genetic regulation systems. He also obtained the Master's Degree in Biotechnology and studied the ability of ligninolytic fungi to degrade daily macroplastics and additives such as bisphenol A. Alejandro Requena began dissemination in 2022, in the II Interuniversity Scientific Dissemination Contest (EventEX association) where he won 2nd prize.

On February 25, the FECYT will hold a training day in Madrid for semi-finalists in communication techniques and vocal and body expression. The eight people classified in the semifinal, which will be held in the coming months, will go to the next phase of the contest, the national final, where the representative of Spain from Solo de Ciencia will be chosen. Applications for participation in the contest have consisted of the presentation of a short video – less than three minutes – in which each applicant has performed, in Spanish, a monologue related to a scientific or technological topic.

More information at https://www.solodeciencia.es

Other semi-finalists in https://ir.uv.es/MmP9qj5