Francesc Artigas, recognised with the Catalan Biology Society’s professional career prize 2021

The Catalan Biology Society (SCB) has announced that the Leandre Cervera Award 2021 in recognition of a distinguished professional career will be awarded to Francesc Artigas, head of the IDIBAPS-IIBB-CSIC research group on Systems Neuropharmacology.

The SCB, in its press release announcing the award, states: “The research carried out by Professor Artigas and his group in the field of mental illnesses has received excellent international recognition, as demonstrated by the long list of conferences to which he has been invited and the high number of citations from his 240 papers”.

Furthermore, “Artigas has created a model for research into mental health with a solid base of neurosciences, which has achieved a notable repercussion and international visibility. It should be mentioned that former members of his group are now heads of psychiatry services, specialists in neurology, university professors, CSIC staff personnel, and IDIBAPS or IMIM researchers, as well as scientists in pharmaceutical companies and CEOs of biotechnology enterprises.”

In 2015 he received the ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award, the most prestigious European award in this discipline, a fact which has made him the only Catalan and Spanish scientist to have received it since the Award was created in 1989. This recognition was awarded to him due to the pioneering and innovative nature of his ideas and the experimental approaches employed in the study of the action mechanism of antidepressant and anti-psychotic drugs. And also due to the strong translational nature of his research, reflected in numerous collaborations with clinical and industrial sectors.