Álvaro San Millán, researcher in the Department of Microbial Biotechnology at the CNB-CSIC has received this year the Jaime Ferrán Prize for young researchers from the Spanish Society of Microbiology (SEM).
San Millán completed his PhD at the Madrid Complutense University under the supervision of Dr. González-Zorn, studying the mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance of animal and human pathogens. After several years at the University of Oxford working on the evolution of plasmid-mediated antimicrobial resistance, he joined the Ramón y Cajal Institute for Health Research (IRYCIS) in Madrid where he began his career as an independent researcher as a Miguel Servet Fellow. He is currently a tenured researcher in the Microbial Biotechnology department of the CNB-CSIC.
His career has developed in the field of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria, one of the current main problems for public health, with an urgent need to develop new therapeutic strategies aimed at counteracting bacteria resistant to antibiotics. San Millán focuses his current research on the role of plasmids in bacterial resistance against antibiotics and on the development of new control strategies for infectious diseases. Results from his projects have been published in journals such as Nature Microbiology, Science, Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences or eLife among others.
The Spanish Society of Microbiology
SEM was founded in 1946 at the CSIC headquarters, an institution with which it maintains a close relationship, as recognised with the SEM Honour Award to the CIB-CSIC in 2009. This year, the Society celebrates its 75th Anniversary with a series of commemorative events in schedule.
The main objectives of the society are to promote research in Microbiology, to encourage international relations and to bring together the many professionals who work in all its various fields, and to foster the knowledge of Microbiology in society as a whole. It is an interdisciplinary society with more than 1,700 members who work in the many different areas of both basic and applied Microbiology.
The Jaime Ferrán Prize recognizes the excellent scientific trajectory of researchers under 40 years of age working in the field of Microbiology. In the historical list of winners , we can also find other CNB researchers such as Luis Ángel Fernández (2007) and Juan Ortín (1985).
