Spanish scientists in the USA organize a series of conferences to commemorate the figure of the Nobel Prize Ramón y Cajal

The Association of Spanish Scientists in the USA (ECUSA), in collaboration with the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) and the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington DC, has organized a series of conferences throughout 2018 to conmemorate the figure of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934), the Nobel Prize in Medicine who made transformative discoveries of the anatomy of the brain and nervous system.

The founder of modern neuroscience was also an exceptional artist whose drawings illustrated and made understand the details of the structure and function of the brain. The MIT Museum hosts, until December 31, the exhibition "The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal", organized by the Weisman Art Museum of the University of Minnesota and the CSIC in the US and Canada. About 80 drawings of Cajal are shown, many of them never seen outside of Spain.

Among the Spanish scientists who have participated in the conferences are Alex Gómez Marín, principal investigator of the Laboratory of Behavior of Organisms in the Institute of Neurosciences of the CSIC; Javier Santaolalla, engineer and Doctor in physics; Salvador Dura, assistant professor of Research at SUNY Downstate Medical Center; Carlos Cruchaga, associate professor of Psychiatry at the University of Washington St. Louis; Sonia Villapol, assistant professor at the Methodist Research Institute of Houston; Ana María Cuervo, co-director of the Einstein Institute for Research on Aging; Rafael Yuste, professor of Biological Sciences and Neurosciences at Columbia University and Susana Martínez Conde, professor of ophthalmology, neurology and physiology and pharmacology at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center.

Likewise, Javier de Felipe, research professor at the Cajal Institute, was in charge of commenting on the documentary "Mariposas del alma" about the life and work of Cajal.

The conferences cycle culminates at the end of November with the presentation of Dr. Alfonso Araque, professor of the Department of Neurosciences of the University of Minnesota, who will share a speech with Teresa Giraldez, professor at the University of La Laguna.