The BBVA Foundation awards its 2007 Biomedic...( The BBVA Foundation has decided its ...),Health

The BBVA Foundation has decided its 2007 call for six Biomedicine Chairs, enabling the attachment of leading international specialists to Spanish groups of excellence working at basic and clinical research centers. The Chairs are funded with a combined amount of 1.2 million euros.

The aim of these Chairs is to facilitate knowledge transfer and strengthen cooperative ties between world-class teams and centers in Spain and international researchers who have made particularly significant contributions in their specialist fields. Further ahead, it is hoped they will contribute to improving the quality of healthcare available to citizens.

The selection of the Chairs, with a duration of between six months and a maximum of one year, was entrusted to an independent review panel. Three of the Biomedicine Chairs are awarded for basic research and another three for clinical research, each one financed with up to 200,000 euros.

In basic research, the BBVA Foundation Chair will facilitate the incorporation of Tamas Horvath, Professor of Comparative Medicine and Neurobiology at Yale University (United States) to the team led by Luis Miguel Garca Segura at the Instituto Cajal- CSIC (Madrid). The focus of their work will be on understanding the cellular contributions of various hormones to perinatal stress-induced alterations in brain functions.

The second basic research Chair goes to Hari Reddi, Lawrence J. Ellison Chair in Musculoskeletal Molecular Biology at the University of California, Davis (United States). Dr. Reddi will work with Jos Becerras team at the University of Malaga on a project dealing with the regeneration of damaged articular cartilage.

Anthony McNaughton, Sheild Professor and Head of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) will join Carlos Belmontes team at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante (University Miguel Hernndez-CS
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