Narcís Monturiol awards for Salvador Ventura, Raquel Piqué and the VHIR

The Government of Catalonia announced on Tuesday 5 July the awarding of a Narcís Monturiol Medal for Scientific and Technological Merit to Department of Prehistory Professor Raquel Piqué and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Professor Salvador Ventura, as well as the Narcís Monturiol Plaque to the Vall d’Hebron Institute for Research (VHIR) for its contribution to the scientific and technological advances in Catalonia.

With a PhD in Historia from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Raquel Piqué is professor of the Department of Prehistory at the UAB and ICREA Acadèmia researcher. Her main line of research focuses on the archaeology of the last hunter-gatherers and first farming societies. She was one of the first to introduce and create archaeobotanical studies in Catalonia. She has been fundamental in the study of traditional botanical knowledge and pre-historic technological developments related to the profitable use of plants. Since 2008, she is co-director of the La Draga archaeological project, where research of the site has won its international renown as a unique site in Europe and has led to the development of innovative reseach lines in the field of archaeobotany.

Salvador Ventura has done many research stays at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, the Harvard Medical School, the Karolinska Institutet, etc. and he specialises in the design and structure of proteins. His research group at the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB), UAB, combines computational and experimental methods to study the link between protein structure and degenerative diseases, and to develop new molecules for treatments. He has published over 250 scientific papers, participated in over 60 competitive projects and collaborations with private entities, and is the author of 14 patents. He was awarded the UAB Research Excellence Award, the Manuel Rico-Bruker Award from the Spanish Biophysics Society, and is a three-time winner of the ICREA-Acadèmia Award in Life and Medical Sciences.

The Vall d’Hebron Institute for Research (VHIR) is a UAB-affiliated centre promoting and developing research, innovation and biohealth teaching at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and the Hospital de Barcelona. Some of its sponsors are the Catalan Ministry for Health and the Ministry for Economics and Knowledge (as a CERCA centre), the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, the Blood and Tissue Bank, the UAB and the Vall d’Hebron Cnacer Institute (VHIO). The centre works towards identifying and applying new solutions to society's health problems and contributes to transferring this knowledge to the rest of the world.

In addition to the UAB lecturers, other people receiving an award include physicist Àlex Arenas, paediatrician Quique Bassat, geologist Isabel Cacho, historian Rosa Congost Colomer, physicist Roberto Emparan, engineer Xavier Oliver i Olivella, engineer Rosa M. Poch Claret and physicist Trinitat Pradell i Cara.

With this edition, the Government of Catalonia has awarded a total of 301 Narcís Monturiol Medals and has conferred the Narcís Monturiol Plaque to 47 institutions since the first awards took place in 1982.