The Universitat Jaume I of Castelló (UJI) and the Universidad Europea (UE) in Madrid have set up a Joint Research Unit in neurodegenerative diseases to carry out scientific activities and projects in this field that favor excellent research and high impact scientific results. The unit will be coordinated by Javier S. Burgos at the UJI and by Carlos Ramírez at the UEM.
Specifically, the new unit will carry out joint research projects in the field of neurodegenerative diseases; it will collaborate in organizing congresses, symposiums, conferences and lectures, and it will promote training activities for scientific and technical staff. Each year, it must present a scientific report on the work carried out and the results obtained.
To carry out its activities, the unit initially comprises a team of teaching and research staff made up of Javier S. Burgos, María Muriach and Francisco de Asís Ros, of the Predepartmental Unit of Medicine of the UJI, and Carlos Ramírez, Isabel Font, Frida Hernández and Noemí Blanco, of the Department of Nursing and Nutrition of the UE. The unit can also share a number of different scientific facilities at the two research centers.
With the signing of this agreement, we are taking a fundamental step in the historical relationship between the two research groups and strengthening the link between the faculties of Health Sciences at both universities. The collaboration between the two groups will enhance research, teaching and transfer in such a critical area as neurodegenerative diseases".
Professor Javier S. Burgos
Carlos Ramírez, a lecturer in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Universidad Europea in Madrid explained that "the creation of this figure is going to give an important boost to research in the two institutions. It is a step forward with the aim of achieving excellence in research in a field as important for society as this type of pathology".
"In Spain, the combined number of people suffering from the most prevalent diseases (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis) comes to more than one million, but there are also other neurodegenerative diseases that need to be addressed and on which we must continue to research, such as neuromuscular diseases or rare diseases like ALS. The creation of this joint unit is a small step in this direction," said Javier S. Burgos of the UJI.
The new unit is the result of the joint work carried out over the last 15 years by Dr Burgos and Dr Ramírez, who worked in close collaboration on various research projects in the area of neurodegenerative diseases. They have co-authored a dozen articles indexed in the JCR and have been the inventors in six patents; furthermore, since Dr Burgos arrived at the UJI, applications have been submitted for three projects in which Dr Ramírez is a member of the research team.
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