Book Presentation “Gabriella Morreale. Su vida y su tiempo”

Recently, on July 11^th, the book “Gabriella Morreale. Su vida y su tiempo” was presented at the Residencia de Estudiantes from the CSIC. The authors are Flora de Pablo, Professor in the Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas, José Pedro Moreno, María Jesús Obregón and Francisca Puertas. In the presentation collaborated as well Juan Bernal (Ad Honorem Professor in the Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas from the CSIC) and Irene Bretón (President of the Sociedad Española de Endocrinología y Nutrición).

Gabriella Morreale, an Italian-Spanish chemist, was an essential figure in the field of basic and applied endocrinological research during the last half of the XX century. She was born in Milan in 1930 and meanwhile she played with her mother’s microscope she developed an interest in research that lasted all her life. The possibility for a woman to succeed was scarce in a country and a time when the difficulties to work in research were enormous, but that is exactly what happened. Gabriella achieved scientific excellence and she was a world’s authority on the concept of iodine deficiency and its consequences and on the action of thyroid hormones in brain. Her contribution to standardize the newborns test to detect congenital hypothyroidism, as part of the program to prevent subnormality, as well as to provide iodine supplements to pregnant women, to permit  normal fetal brain development, were pioneer.

She did her Ph.D. in the University of Granada and after a stay in Leiden University Gabriella entered the CSIC in 1958 as Staff Scientist, together with her husband, Francisco Escobar, also a scientist. She promoted to full Professor in 1970, and was Section Chief on thyroid studies within the Gregorio Marañón Institute between 1963 and 1975. She was President of the Sociedad Española de Endocrinología between 1975 and 1979. In 1976 the group moved to the School of Medicine campus  within the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and her laboratory was a crucial  contributor to the present Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas Alberto Sols, formally inaugurated in 1984. Gabriella continued to work actively until she was 80-year-old, she died in Madrid in December 2017.

The scientific school that Gabriella and “Paco” nurtured is integrated by a long list of researchers with very important contributions to molecular and medical endocrinology until nowadays.

The book, edited by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, may be bought through this link.