The scientist considers that “this recognition should serve as an incentive to promote, even more, the interest in research among the professionals of the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital”.
Julio Pascual Gómez, head of the ‘Clinical and Genetics of Headaches’ group at the Valdecilla Research Institute (IDIVAL) and head of the Neurology Service at the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital (HUMV) has been awarded the Juan María Parés 2023 Research Prize, which the UC Social Council grants in the category of ‘Research Activity’.
This award is endowed with 7,000 euros, which recognizes a meritorious scientific career, carried out by a professor or researcher linked to the University of Cantabria, of which he is a professor in the Department of Medicine and Psychiatry of the Faculty of Medicine.
“I am particularly excited since this is the first time that this award has gone to a clinician and I believe that this recognition should serve as an incentive to promote, even more, the interest in research among the professionals of the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital. As a neurologist, I believe that this award recognizes the great advances made in the last decade in clinical neurology, which allow us to successfully treat many diseases that until recently had very serious sequelae,” he added.
“The recognition by the Social Council of the University of Cantabria has an enormous significance for me for several reasons. Firstly, because of its prestige, which not only lies with the awarding entity, but also with the scientific quality of the previous winners,” Pascual emphasized.
“It comes at a time in my professional career, when I have just turned 65, in which such a prestigious recognition more than compensates for all the efforts of four decades combining care, teaching and research.”
On this point, Pascual – managing director of HUMV from 2015 to 2019 – highlighted feeling “especially happy that this award goes to a researcher in headache and, specifically, in migraines, because this disease so disabling for the activities of daily living has always been the great forgotten as it settles mainly in young women and from the University of Cantabria we have contributed to the development, for the first time, of the first specific treatments for this headache.”
“Finally, this recognition allows me to pay the moral debt I have with my teachers, who taught me everything, and with my family, who in some way have suffered my interest in neuroscience,” he concluded.
BRIEF CV JULIO PASCUAL
Julio Pascual graduated in Medicine in 1975 at the University of Salamanca, and subsequently completed his doctoral thesis at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology of the University of Cantabria, on brain neurochemistry, with an Extraordinary Prize. The line of neurochemistry dedicated to the study of receptors for neurotransmitters in the normal and pathological human brain resulted in multiple publications in basic neuroscience journals.
His main line of research for 3 decades has been that of headaches, making relevant contributions in practically all fields, so that his contributions could be considered an example of Translational Medicine. Thus, for example, he has described the epidemiology of chronic primary headaches (Harry Kaplan Award for the best article of the year, from the American Headache Society) and the clinical manifestations of various headaches (for these contributions the European Headache Federation awarded him its most prestigious prize, the Enrico Greppi, in 2008).
In addition, this research activity has been recognized in different national and international fields. For example, he has been editor-in-chief of ‘Revista de Neurología’ (official publication of the Autonomous Societies of Neurology) and associate editor of ‘Neurología’ (official journal of the Spanish Society of Neurology) for 8 years and for 15 years the first non-North American associate editor of ‘Headache’ (official publication of the American Headache Asociation), in addition to having 5 six-year research periods recognized by the ANECA.
Among his distinctions, he holds the Career Achievement Award granted by the Organización Médica Colegial in 2018 and this year the Board of Directors of the Spanish Society of Neurology has selected him to deliver the plenary lecture ‘Ramón y Cajal’ of its Annual Meeting, which is a recognition of a research career, in general, reserved for foreign speakers of recognized prestige.
JUAN MARÍA PARÉS RESEARCH AWARDS
The Social Council of the University of Cantabria has been awarding the Juan María Parés Research Prizes since 2001 with the aim of annually highlighting the research activity carried out by active researchers who are or have been linked to the University of Cantabria. This award may also be granted to a meritorious scientific career, carried out by a professor or researcher linked to the University.
Photo caption: Julio Pascual, in his office at IDIVAL
