Manel Esteller leaves the Josep Carreras Institute and moves to Ohio following an audit for alleged irregularities.

BarcelonaOncologist and researcher Manel Esteller will assume, as of December 6, the director of cancer genomics research at The James Comprehensive Cancer Center (OSUCCC) at The Ohio State University (USA), where he will also serve as a professor of oncology. He will therefore leave the Josep Carreras Research Institute (IJC), where he has worked since 2019. According to the oncologist himself, he intends to combine his work in the United States with research in Catalonia through the Sant Pau Research Institute. Initially, Esteller wanted to maintain his position and salary as a researcher at Icrea—the Catalan government's talent acquisition program—which can reach 117,000 euros per year, but he has finally requested a leave of absence.

The oncologist's departure is prompted by the negative results of an audit that, as ARA previously reported, analyzed alleged irregularities in the institution's accounts, malpractice, and internal complaints. The audit, to which ARA has had access, was presented in the spring, and after learning its conclusions, the IJC has asked the researcher to leave the institution.

In 2018, Esteller was appointed director of the IJC, coinciding with the inauguration of the institute's new campus in Can Ruti, Badalona. However, the oncologist did not begin serving as director until May 2019. In June 2024, he was removed from the management of the IJC after The Anti-Fraud Office received three complaints and the Committee for Research Integrity in Catalonia (CIR-CAT) a fourth. for "anomalous situations" and alleged economic irregularities. In September 2024, Esteller resigned from the leadership of the IJC arguing that he wanted to focus on research.

A prestigious researcher

Esteller is an internationally renowned scientific figure and is recognized with the Icrea accreditation granted by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia) for scientific excellence. He has also received numerous international and national awards for his work, including the Gold Medal from the Parliament of Catalonia. A 2024 study by Stanford University (USA) ranked him the most influential cancer researcher in Spain and 125th in the world among researchers in all areas of science. Before joining the IJC, he was a visiting researcher at the Faculty of Biological and Medical Sciences at the University of Saint Andrews in the United Kingdom and a postdoctoral researcher and research associate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the United States. He also led the cancer epigenetics laboratory at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) and directed the Epigenetics and Cancer Biology Program at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL). He is also the author of more than 640 publications in scientific journals.

Since Esteller was appointed director of the IJC in 2019, the leukemia research center has grown exponentially and achieved several scientific milestones, such as obtaining accreditation as a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence, a distinction that places them among the best in the world in their respective areas of research.