The seven winners of the Rei Jaume I 2024 Prizes, Antonio Acín (Basic Research), Francisco Pérez (Economics), Xavier Trepat (Biomedical Research), Sergio M. Vicente (Environmental Protection), Luis Serrano (New Technologies), Víctor Amarnani (Entrepreneur) and Jordi Sunyer (Clinical Research and Public Health) have explained this morning, to the media and this afternoon to businessmen, academic world and society in general, their corresponding lines of research for which they have received this recognition.

When asked by journalists about the consequences in different areas of the policies being implemented by the U.S., the winners agreed that they will be very negative for all sectors, economic, environmental and research. However, they all pointed out that these policies will also be counterproductive for the American country itself and can become an opportunity for the rest of the states. For example, firstly to attract the talent of American scientists and scientists of other nationalities who have so far been attracted to this country, but who now, due to uncertainty about migration and the discrediting of science, may wish to seek other places.

Basic Research, Economics and Biomedical Research

The Rei Jaume I Prize for Basic Research 2024, Antonio Acín, holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Barcelona, a degree in Telecommunication Engineering, Polytechnic University of Catalonia (1997), and a degree in Physics, University of Barcelona (1997). He is ICREA professor at ICFO-Instituto de Ciencias Fotónicas.

“Quantum physics provides better quantum computers that can solve problems better, also security with quantum cryptography” stated Acín. “It is now an information paradigm shift as our understanding of information has changed with quantum physics.”

In the economic area, Francisco Pérez, Economics 2024 winner, PhD in Economics from the Universitat de València. Professor of Economic Analysis. Professor Emeritus and Director of Research at the Valencian Institute of Economic Research. In his more than 50 years of research activity, he has specialized in economic growth and competitiveness, regional economy, economics of education, banking and public finances.

“Our research for years,” explained Perez,” has focused its efforts on measuring value in all sectors. Knowledge is valuable because it increases our ability to provide effective and efficient solutions to society.

Xavier Trepat, winner of the Rei Jaume 2024 Prize for Biomedical Research, holds a degree in Physics (University of Barcelona, UB, 2000) and in Electronic Engineering (UB, 2002). D. from the Faculty of Medicine of the UB (2001-2004). In 2004, he moved to the Harvard School of Public Health to do postdoctoral work after obtaining a Ramón y Cajal fellowship, and in 2011, he obtained an ICREA researcher position to create and lead the group “Integrative Cell and Tissue Dynamics” at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC). In addition, he is a member of CIBER-BBN (since 2016), member of EMBO (since 2018), and Banco Sabadell Award for Biomedical Research (2015) and Constantes y Vitales Award (A3Media, 2021).

“I have always been curious about building bridges between the world of cells, to understand them,” Trepat began.  What we do is to build those bridges, in my case, between physics and medicine, one of them is in cancer,” he said.

“We develop technologies to measure the strengths of healthy cells over tumor cells. Physics tries to understand the movement and the arrival of healthy cells to kill the bad ones. We create a chip in the lab and use it to test therapies, or personalized therapies,” said the Catalan researcher.

Environmental Protection, New Technologies, Entrepreneurship and Clinical Research and Public Health.

The Rei Jaume I Environmental Protection Prize 2024, Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano is PhD. in Physical Geography from the University of Zaragoza (2004). Professor of the Spanish National Research Council and Master in Remote Sensing by the Institute of Spatial Studies of Catalonia (2000). He has participated in more than 45 R&D projects, coordinating two research projects at European level, and has published more than 400 scientific papers, including more than 275 articles in international journals in the fields of water resources, atmospheric sciences, remote sensing, ecology, etc.

As Sergio Vicente explained, “droughts have multiple impacts, crops, forest fires, and especially in developing countries due to famine. Droughts have been one of the biggest shapers of history, migrations, wars…but it is a very complex phenomenon and difficult to measure.”

The winner explained that “throughout my career, we have worked on three lines related to the problems, the first one is how to measure it (tools, analysis), the second one is how these droughts are (how are their mechanisms, etc.) and finally on the impact of these on the different sectors”

Luis Serrano, winner of the Rei Jaume I New Technologies Prize, is a PhD in Biochemistry and Director and Senior Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG). Luis Serrano is a visionary scientist known for his fast progress in merging fundamental research with innovative health solutions.With nearly 400 publications, an h-index of 95 and an average citation rate of 92.5, Serrano’s career started with a PhD at the CBM in Madrid and a postdoc with Prof. A.R. Fersht in the UK. His leadership at EMBL Heidelberg as head of the Structural and Computational Biology program and as director of the Barcelona CRG has been instrumental in achieving scientific excellence in Europe and has made the CRG a leader in Systems Biology and Biomedical research.

Serrano told that, in his laboratory, he is dedicated to “using a living being, a bacterium, to inject it into the body so that it goes to the site of the disease and that living being produces the molecules we need to overcome that disease is what we do, and the advantage of using a living being is that it can measure the environment in which it is introduced and have greater or lesser effect.” Serrano nevertheless warned that “today we have the tools to change the genome, but we still don’t know how to do it and when we find out we will have an ethical problem.”

The 2024 Entrepreneur Winner is Victor Amarnani CEO of A4B Group Corp (BigBuy Group). BigBuy is a fast-growing company, currently with 300 people on staff between several companies within the group. BigBuy has created a unique business model, totally disruptive and pioneering from the Valencian Community to the whole of Europe; a 360º proposal to boost digital sales for our customers, taking advantage of trends such as Full-Commerce or Omnichannel.

According to the winner, “we are a bridge between suppliers that have products (factories, etc.) that want to enter the digital market because we provide them with digital retailers to whom we give access to that catalog and to the technology developed for us. In addition, you can sell through the web, social networks, marketplace”.

The winner of the last category, Clinical Research and Public Health, Jordi Sunyer, is an internationally recognized leader in the environmental origins of asthma and COPD, and neurodevelopment.  His scientific work began by finding and abating asthma epidemics in Barcelona in the 1980s.

This gave him the desire to prevent people from getting sick and allowed him to participate in the development of Public Health in Spain, first by co-creating the epidemiology department of IMIM and later on by creating the center for environmental epidemiology (CREAL) which has recently become ISGlobal.

Sunyer explained how, in the 1980s, “an epidemic of asthma appeared in Barcelona that collapsed the emergency services and after an investigation, they managed to find out where it came from, particularly from an atmospheric cause in the port of Barcelona”.

As a result, his career focused on research into the causes of asthma and lung diseases, especially in the early years of life.

To conclude, this year’s seven winners held a colloquium, that you can see: