Joan J. Guinovart winner of the Prat de la Riba Prize, awarded by the "Institut d'Estudis Catalans"

In recognition of Guinovart’s scientific trajectory in the research fields of biochemistry and physiology, the jury has awarded this prize for the work entitled “Mechanism suppressing glycogen synthesis in neurons and its demise in progressive myoclonus epilepsy”, published in Nature Neuroscience in 2007. According to the jury, the article is “groundbreaking research that describes the ambivalent relation of neurons with glycogen synthesis, which is inhibited in this cell type probably because it induces cell death or apoptosis”. The prize will be presented at 18.00 h on 22 April in the Prat de la Riba Room at the IEC during the prize giving ceremony for the IEC 2009 Sant Jordi Awards.

This year’s Prat de la Riba Prize is for Biological Sciences, considering the work of a Catalan researcher in the field of ecology, botany, zoology, medicine or any other discipline of biology published in the last 5 years (from 2004 to 2008). Each year the Prat de la Riba Prize, founded in 1916, is devoted to one of IEC’s five divisions: History- Archaeology; Biological Sciences; Science and Technology; Philology; and Philosophy and Social Sciences.