Recent news here.

December 20, 2006 - We celebrated today our highly-praised Annual Christmas Luncheon. Argentinian food (which is to say meat) was our pick this year. Pic of the event here.

December 4, 2006 - More good news. We have been admitted into something called Thematic Networks for Cooperative Investigation, an initiative launched by the Spanish Ministry of Health to foster cooperation between groups working on similar areas of biomedical interest. What this means in layman terms is that extra money to hire personnel will be made available to us. We are included in the network "Diabetes and Related Metabolic Disorders".

November 29, 2006 - After swift negotiations, the Eicosanoid Research Division has signed an agreement with the pharmaceutical company PharmaMar to study various aspects of lipid metabolism in cells treated with anticancer drugs. This is exciting news, and a big step in the right direction for us.

October 6, 2006 - After the "International Professional of the Year 2004" (July 16, 2004) and the "Leading Health Professional of the World 2005" (October 23, 2004) award nominations, today it was the turn of the "Man of the Year 2006" award. This one is from the American Biographical Institute and, according to them, reserved only for men who have significantly enhanced world communities and professions...

October 5, 2006 - "You do not know how the monkey sweats" (African proverb). Fall 2006 Group Meeting meeting schedule here.

October 2, 2006 - The Fundación La Caixa Biomedical Forum Meeting was held today in Barcelona. Violeta Ruipérez presented our latest results on cyclooxygenase-2 regulation.

September 18, 2006 - We welcome Alma Astudillo, graduate student, as a new member of the Eicosanoid Research Division

September 9, 2006 - Palm trees galore in Elche, Eastern Spain. Time for some cell signaling stuff under the auspices of the Spanish Biochemical Society.

September 5, 2006 - As the old proverb says, "Men are masters of their silence but slaves of their words". Some people digging into that, both ways.

July 17, 2006 - Some chaps are still bold enough to embark themselves (and their families) in a quest for new frontiers of knowledge a.k.a. sabbatical year. Quique Pérez Payá is one of them. He and his family are currently in the "almost" step of their journey: almost bought a car, almost rented an apartment, almost found a school for the kids... However, all of these adventures take place in San Francisco, and that definitely pays for everything, whether or not you wear some flowers in your hair.

July 14, 2006 - Yesterday, Rebeca Pérez successfully defended her thesis dissertation as a final fulfillment of the academic requirements for a Ph.D. degree from the University of Valladolid. Rebeca has been our first graduate student here in Valladolid, and we do truly wish her well in her future endeavors.

July 7, 2006 - Albert Camus also said that all that he knew most surely about morality and obligations, he owed to soccer. It could be that soccer is not of much interest to some in the neighborhood.

June 20, 2006 -  Albert Camus once said that time is an awkward inconvenience between soccer matches. We agree. Summer 2006 group meeting schedule here.

June 16, 2006 - A one-day lipid workshop, gathering together scientists from Spain, France, and Italy was held in Barcelona. A nice initiative that deserves continuity.

May 30, 2006 - Now that the election for rector of the University of Valladolid is definitively over, we will just add that somehow, confusing times lie ahead.

May 4, 2006 - Days of agitation and excitement for the University of Valladolid, as the run for the Rectorial Chair rages on. Since our employer is the Spanish Research Council, not the University, this election stuff is a lesser issue for us in particular. Whether the same can be said for the Institute as a whole remains to be seen.

April 4, 2006 - In the latest issue of JBC there is a paper from George Carman's lab identifying the gene encoding a Mg2+-dependent phosphatidic acid phosphatase enzyme in S. cerevisiae. Interestingly, this gene turned out to be a homolog of the mammalian gene LPIN1, which encodes lipin, a protein involved in adipogenesis. This paper represents a major breakthrough for the lipid field, since of all enzymes involved in phospholipid biosynthesis in eukaryotic cells, Mg2+-dependent phosphatidic acid phosphatase was the only one that remained to be described at a molecular level. As the JBC highlights in an aptly-titled editorial, the lipid synthesis story is now complete.

March 28, 2006 - In the March issue of the newsletter of the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology there is a comment on our recent paper in Molecular Biology of the Cell. This is the second time that one of our papers deserves the attention of the editors (see Feb 3, 2005 entry). We thank again the Society for the free exposure.

March 21, 2006 - Springtime has come at last, and no one knows how it happened (in Spanish, that rhymes). Spring 2006 group meeting schedule here.

March 15, 2006 - It's always nice to meet old friends you had never seen in years. Yasu Shirai from Kobe, Japan, crossed half the globe to pay us a visit here in Valladolid. Needless to say, it was such a great time.

March 1, 2006 - Clarification: sentence in italics in the entry right below this one is evidently adapted from a verse from Paul Laurence Dunbar's When Malindy Sings.

February 24, 2006 - Never ever give up! Not entirely clear whether this is referring to the frog or the stork, but what is definitely clear is that when hit comes to raal right mass spectrometrin' in Valladolid, 't ain't no easy thing to do.

February 20, 2006 - The good guys at The Free Dictionary utilize the following sentence to exemplify the proper usage of the expression "throw a tantrum": When you are a grown-up, you don't throw a tantrum if something offends you, you discuss it. Some people in the neighborhood could browse the Free Dictionary more often, methinks.

February 16, 2006 - Some more pics of our labs, here and here. As these are fairly recent pics, the benches look closer to the organized chaos every good mannered lab should be in.

February 2, 2006 - The official 2006 Group Picture of the Eicosanoid Research Division can be found here. No lab coats this time.

February 1, 2006 - In the Jan 2006 issue of ASBMB Today, newsletter of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, there is an article giving some practical advice to people who just begin an independent scientific career in the States. This is very instructive reading. Too bad that the Spanish system works so different.

January 25 , 2006 - Some pics of our labs. The pictures were taken shortly after our move to the new building (July 2005), that is why the benches look so empty. The bosses are here.

January 17, 2006 - Group meetings resume after Christmas break.  Winter 2006 schedule posted here for quick reference.

January 9, 2006 - It is customary in these lands for institutions, businesses, etc. to distribute small wallet calendars at the beginning of each year. Here is ours (Spanish Research Council at Castile-León) for 2006.

January 5, 2006 - It was no easy task to decide on which paper to pick as Paper of the Year 2005. In the end, our decision was to select the paper that Takao Shimizu and co-workers published in the July 1 issue of JBC (Ohto et al., JBC 280: 24576-24583, 2005). In this paper, three new murine phospholipase A2 enzymes with homology to group IV members were described. With these, the total number of genes encoding functional phospholipase A2 proteins in mammals reaches the whopping number of 22. One only wonders how many more PLA2s still remain to be discovered.