Home » News » Celebrating the Cajal Year: Present and future of his legacy

On September 28, 2022, the “Santiago Ramón y Cajal Research Year 2022” was inaugurated. The Cajal Year began in 2022 and will last until 2025 and its objective is to publicize the legacy of the scientist and Nobel Prize in Medicine from 1906.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, laid the foundations for the modern study of the nervous system and gave rise to neuroscience thanks to the development of a novel theory that has been called the Neuron Doctrine. This theory indicated, contrary to what was believed at the time, that neurons are individual brain cells and not a connected tissue.

On March 9, at 7:00 pm, the colloquium talk “Celebrating the Cajal Year: Present and future of its legacy” will take place at the Bidebarrieta Library in Bilbao, where four neuroscientists, close to the approaches of Santiago Ramón and Cajal, will break down the validity of the findings of the precursor of current neuroscience.

Speakers:

  • Javier de Felipe is a research professor at the Cajal Institute of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), in Madrid, a center that has its origins in the biological research laboratory whose first director was Cajal himself. His studies focus on the analysis of the microanatomical and neurochemical organization of the cerebral cortex and on the development of computer technologies to examine the brain.
  • Isabel Fariñas is a professor of Cellular Biology and director of the Molecular Neurobiology Unit at the University of Valencia. Her current research focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying the behavior of stem cells found in our brains that are responsible for the generation of new neurons.
  • José Javier Lucas, is a research professor at the “Severo Ochoa” Molecular Biology Center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), in Madrid. His studies are aimed at discovering the molecular mechanisms that underlie neurological and neurodegenerative diseases by generating transgenic mice to validate pathogenic pathways and test new therapeutic strategies.
  • Carlos Matute is a full professor in the Department of Neurosciences at the UPV / EHU and has been scientific director of the Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience, a pioneer in its focus on the study of glial cells, the other brain cells that Cajal and the his collaborators. His investigations are framed in the functional and pathological relevance of the neurotransmitter receptors present in said cells.

You can access the recording of this event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owpDO109PEs