In order to strengthen key areas of Alzheimer's research, the Pasqual Maragall Foundation has created a new Strategic Research Funding Office, which will be headed by Dr. Carolina Minguillon to promote, among other projects, the development of research programs outside the BBRC. In addition, in order to strengthen neuroimaging infrastructures and techniques, Dr. David Vállez has been appointed Director of the Neuroimaging Platform of its research center, the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC).
Dr Minguillon, a graduate in Biology and a PhD in Genetics, joined the BBRC in 2015 and has been responsible for leading the Research Management Office since 2017. Her mission will now be to identify lines and opportunities in Alzheimer's and age-related neurodegenerative diseases research, as well as to promote, foster and manage the deployment of grant programs for scientific projects that carry out excellent clinical or translational research, such as the Pasqual Maragall Researchers Programme. He/she will also be responsible for strategically positioning the Foundation as a funding agent for research into Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases, coordinating with the researchers who have won grants and aligning them with BBRC research; and designing and coordinating the execution of the Foundation's research programs.
As Dr. Minguillon herself explains, “This new office responds to the needs that the Foundation faces at a time of growth and internationalization and will enhance research opportunities both in our country and beyond our borders.”.
Furthermore, Dr. David Vállez, as the new head of the Neuroimaging Platform, will be in charge of supervising the acquisition of magnetic resonance images and the management, analysis and quality control of the data, to share them with the BBRC research groups and collaborators and, therefore, will coordinate the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), neuroinformatics and advanced image processing teams.
In the words of Dr. Vállez himself, “Joining the BBRC is a very exciting challenge for me and an opportunity to contribute to the goal of preventing Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. Continuing to promote the excellent neuroimaging research carried out at the BBRC will help the centre grow and will have a positive impact on continuing to better understand the mechanisms of this disease.”.
David Vállez has been Senior Researcher and Data Manager at the Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at the Amsterdam University Medical Center for the past few years. He has also participated in the AMYPAD project, a European collaboration to improve the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease using positron emission tomography (PET) of the brain. Vállez holds a PhD in Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and a Master's degree in Clinical Psychoneuroimmunology from the University of Girona.
