Carmen Balana created one of the first neuro-oncology committees in Spain and was a founder of the Spanish Neurooncological Group (now GEINO), where she was president and remain an active member. Her first publication as first author in a high-impact journal was in 2003 on liquid biopsies in high-grade gliomas, which has only recently become a strong research line. Other professional accomplishments: EORTC Brain Tumor Study Group (since 2002); reviewer and Editorial Committee member on several journals, including Neuro-Oncology; invited speaker at ESMO 2019 and ESMO ASIA 2020; President, IGTP Internal Scientific Committee (since 2017); President, Catalan-Balearic Oncology Society (since September 2020); PI, 70+ clinical trials (35 in CNS). She coordinated several ISCII grants and recently the Marató TV3 (665/C/2013) grant (1,690,500€), when she was able to coordinate six Catalan hospitals on a large clinical, radiological, immunohistochemical and molecular study of glioblastoma.