Prize Winners

Curriculum Vitae

Doctor of Chemical Sciences. PhD in Biochemistry, Severo Ochoa Centre for Molecular Biology.

Jury ruling

The jury for the Rei Jaume I Prize for Basic Research, meeting in Castellón, has unanimously decided to award the 2002 prize to Mr Juan Modolell Mainou.

In recognition of his outstanding work over many years on the development of the nervous system in the Drosophila model, as a preliminary system for understanding these processes in higher animals.

Through ingenious genetic analyses, he has identified the genes that specify the precursors of neurons and has demonstrated that their expression is regulated both spatially and temporally. More recently, he has characterised the Iroquois genes responsible for this regulation. He has continued his research by using this information to study the formation of the nervous system in Xenopus and has promoted further research into the process in chickens and mice. Professor Modolell’s contribution represents a fundamental advance in understanding the relationship between genes and the development of the nervous system.