Dr. Ginés Morata imparted the opening lecture of the “Frontiers in MCIB” master module on 13th October with a conference entitled “How Drosophila can help to understand cancer?”.
He received the “Príncipe de Asturias” Prize in 2007 as well as the “Jaime I” and “Santiago Ramón y Cajal”. He is Dr. Honoris causa by the Universities of Alcalá de Henares and Almería and has received the “Medalla de Oro de Andalucía ”.
Dr. Morata has played a key role in defining the general doctrine which describes the genetic programming of embrionary development. His enormously influential works with Drosophila flies, which gave him together with Dr. Peter Lawrence the “Príncipe de Asturias” Research Prize, have contributed to establish the basis of a model in which the different parts of the body (compartments, segments, parasegments) are integrated with the function of the so-called identity genes and the genes of formation of morfologic patterns. His most recent work focuses in taking advantage the knowledge about Drosophila to contribute to the understanding of tumorigenesis mechanisms in humans. Prof. Morata started his scientific career at CIB, where he carried out one of his most important discoveries.