Seville, June 22, 2017. The IBVF, part of the Isla de la Cartuja Scientific Research Centre (cicCartuja), is celebrating its 50th anniversary. To mark this event, a scientific event and an institutional event have been scheduled.
The scientific event will consist of a series of conferences to be held at the cicCartuja on June 29. Principal investigators belonging to this Institute will present the most relevant results of their studies.
The institutional event will take place on June 30 from 11:30 a.m. and will be attended by the Minister of Economy and Knowledge of the Junta de Andalucía, Antonio Ramírez de Arellano, the President of the CSIC, Emilio Lora-Tamayo, the Rector of the University of Seville, Miguel Ángel Castro, the General Director of the CSIC General Foundation, Miguel García Guerrero, and the current Director of the IBVF, Luis C. Romero.
The IBVF, a centre of scientific research of excellence
The IBVF is a joint research centre of the University of Seville and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), whose main lines of research focus on the study of the molecular bases of development in cyanobacteria and plants; cell signalling and adaptation to environmental stress in photosynthetic organisms; gene expression and metabolic regulation in plant cells; the bioelimination of atmospheric CO2 in the fight against climate change; and microalgae biotechnology for the production of biofuels and compounds of industrial interest.
The figure of Manuel Losada Villasante
In September 1967, Manuel Losada Villasante, the first Andalusian to receive a Prince of Asturias Award, founded the Department of Morphology and Physiology, an organisation dependent on the Institute of Cellular Biology of the CSIC and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Seville. It was in 1986, with the signing of the agreement between the CSIC and the University of Seville, when it adopted its current name of the Institute of Plant Biochemistry and Photosynthesis.
Born in Carmona (Seville), Losada Villasante is one of the most brilliant scientists in our country. A disciple of Severo Ochoa, he travelled to the United States and Germany during the 1950s to complete his academic career. Later, he was appointed professor of biochemistry by the University of Seville, a task that he would come to do simultaneously with the direction of the Institute of Cellular Biology of the CSIC and his research, focused on the mechanisms of photosynthesis.
The figure of Losada Villasante, now retired from his work as a researcher, will be present at these commemorative events that, of course, will also recognise the rest of the staff who make the existence of the IBVF possible every day, a centre where more than a hundred people work and which is committed to scientific research of excellence.