Miguel Ángel González Villena and Víctor Rafael Muñoz Villena 1º Bach. A

JUAN CARLOS IZPISUA BELMONTE

BIOGRAPHY

Juan Carlos Izpisua is a Spanish biochemist and pharmacist, specialized in the field of developmental biology. He was born in a town in Albacete (Hellín). When He was nine, he had to leave his studies (family financial problems), but He didn’t give up and when he was sixteen, He decided to continue with his studies.

He graduated in Pharmacy at the University of Valencia, and He did a Master in Pharmacology at the same university before completing his Ph.D (Doctor Philosophiae) in Biochemistry and Pharmacology, University of Bologna, Italy, and the University of Valencia. After doing postdoctoral researches at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), USA, he joined the Salk Institute in 1993. In 2004, he helped to establish the Center for Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona and was its Director between 2004 and January 13, 2014 (He resigned citing "the lack of a project and finding a new competitive funding model that is inclusive").

Dr. Izpisua Belmonte has received several awards and honors over the years, including the William Clinton Presidential Award, the Pew Scholar Award, the Gold Medal of the Junta Castilla-La Mancha, and the Roger Guillemin Endowed Nobel Chair. A notable honor was the naming of a secondary school, InstitutoEnseñanzaSecundaria (IES) Izpisua Belmonte, in his hometown of Hellín.

WORK AND INVESTIGATION

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Miguel Ángel González Villena and Víctor Rafael Muñoz Villena 1º Bach. A

To understand what is the work being done byIzpisua we need to know which field of research works: regenerative medicine or tissue engineering.

Regenerative medicineis the "process of replacing or regenerating human cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish normal function". This field holds the promise of regenerating damaged tissues and organs in the body by replacing damaged tissue and/or by stimulating the body's own repair mechanisms to heal previously irreparable tissues or organs.

Juan Carlos Izpisuastudies how genes and molecules orchestrate the development of an embryo.The questions addressed by the laboratory include: How does one cell give rise to millions of cells, and how do they come to be organized into complete structures such as limbs, a heart or brain? How stems cells differentiate and give rise to over 250 cell types that constitute the human body?

“Through the years his work has contributed to uncovering the role of some homeobox genes during organ and tissue patterning and specification, as well as the identification of the molecular mechanisms that determine how the different cell type precursors of internal organs are organized spatially along the embryonic left right axis. Overall, his studies have helped to better understand how embryonic stem cells give rise to specific cell types during embryo development, and how these cells interact with one another to form tissues and organs with proper morphology and function. His studies are contributing to give us a glimpse into the molecular basis implicated during organ regeneration in higher vertebrates, the differentiation of human stem cells into various tissues as well as aging and aging related diseases”.

Now, we know a little about Izpisua’s work, but one of the most important discovery (obviously with his workmates) is the generation of "Mini-Kidney" Structures from Human Stem Cells. The Salk researchers have generated three-dimensional kidney structures from human stem cells, opening new avenues for studying the development and diseases of the kidneys and to the discovery of new drugs that target human kidney cells.

Scientists had created precursors of kidney cells using stem cells as recently as this past summer, but the Salk team was the first to coax human stem cells into forming three-dimensional cellular structures similar to those found in our kidneys.

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Miguel Ángel González Villena and Víctor Rafael Muñoz Villena 1º Bach. A

To finish, last Friday we have the luck to meet him and to listen what is He doing and his opinion about the medicine’s present, the wickedness of some pharmaceutical companies like Big Pharma (They only want to obtain money, not to cure diseases), He motivated us to study and work hard in the field we likeand even We can asked him some questions which were answered with pleasure.

After a chat with this important scientist with both Bach. of Science and Technology, We have a conference where Izpisua explained us simply whatwas He doing and some recent researches which can change traditional medicine, like children with Progeria (They have this disease because They have their nuclear envelope different as we have it), who could be cured in the future, with FTI (They are capable of reversing the dramatic nuclear structure abnormalities that are the hallmark of cells from children with Progeria).

Izpisua told us too that with only a skin cell and four genes, the life can be formed, and other amazing investigation is that it could be possible modifying people’s genotype to cure diseases or make it disappear.

Here’s a photo with him:

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SOURCES (WEBS)

Castellano-Manchegosilustres

Wikipedia.org

www.salk.edu/faculty/belmonte.html

www.news.sciencemag.org/europe/2014/01/spanish-stem-cell-star-steps-down

www.diarioextra.com/Dnew/noticiaDetalle/218834