Prize Winners

Curriculum Vitae

Research Fellow at the Spanish National Research Council

Jury ruling

The jury for the Rei Jaume I Prizes for Basic Research, meeting in Benicásim (Castellón), has unanimously decided to award the 1993 prize to Mr Alberto Muñoz Terol.

This is in recognition of his pioneering work in a highly competitive field. He has studied an oncogene known as Erb A, which sheds considerable light on one of the mechanisms leading to cancer. This oncogene was previously known, but its role was not. He was the first to discover that the normal gene corresponding to the Erb A gene is linked to a thyroid hormone receptor. He then clarified how the various domains of this receptor control the activity of other genes important for cell differentiation. Finally, he demonstrated that when the gene is altered, it transforms the cell into a cancerous cell, because it blocks the activity of the corresponding normal gene through a new mechanism known as ‘dominant-negative’. This research has greatly enriched our understanding of the cancer process, clarifying the role of cancer-related genes and their role in modifying cell differentiation programmes, as well as the molecular mechanisms responsible.