Salvador Moncada

Salvador Enrique Moncada (born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras on December 3, 1944) is a renowned Honduran pharmacologist.

Background

He is the director of the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research at the University College London. In El Salvador, he qualified to be a doctor because he was interested in cardiovascular science. His interest was triggered by working with the Peruvian pharmacologist, Augusto Campos who, at that time, was visiting the University of El Salvador. In February 1971, he earned a fellowship to Sir John Robert Vane's laboratory at the Royal College of Surgeons, in England. In Sir John Vane's laboratory he was part of the team where it was discovered that aspirin-like drugs inhibit prostaglandin biosynthesis.

He felt that he owed something to his native country, Honduras; therefore, in 1974, he went back to do some research. He returned to the UK where he joined the Wellcome research laboratories, again under the leadership of Sir John Vane.

He is married to Her Royal Highness Princess Maria-Esmeralda of Belgium, in London on 4 April 1998. They have a daughter, Alexandra Leopoldine (born in London on 4 August 1998), and a son, Leopoldo Daniel (born in London on 21 May 2001).

He is the author or co-author of almost 600 papers, including his work on aspirin, prostacyclin, and nitric oxide.

Recognitions

In 1990 he was awarded with Spanish "Prince of Asturias Scientific and Technological Research Award" [1][2].

In 1992 the "Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science" awarded him the "Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine" [3].

There is controversy about his exclusion from the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.[4][5][6].

Trivia

• There is a Fundación Salvador Moncada para la Ciencia e Investigación (Salvador Moncada Foundation for Science and Research) in Honduras.[7]

References

• nature.com - Journal v8 n2

External links

• Royal House of Belgium