The juries of the King James I awards have distinguished this year outstanding researchers in the fields of quantum information, protein design with Artificial Intelligence, public health, the Spanish and regional economy or drought. The 2024 honorees, who were announced this Tuesday in Valencia, are Antonio Acín in Basic Research; Francisco Pérez, in Economics; Xavier Trepat, in Biomedical Research; Sergio Martín Vicente-Serrano, in Environmental Protection; Luis Serrano, in New Technologies, Victor Armanani in Entrepreneur and Jordi Sunyer in Clinical Research and Public Health, a modality that is awarded this year for the first time. None of the seven awards has gone to a woman, despite the fact that 25% of this year’s candidates were from researchers and scientists.
Jordi Sunyer (Clinical Research), 66 years old, professor at the Institute of Public Health of the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, has stood out for his work that has placed public health at national and international levels of relevance through the recognition of new risk factors in the asthma epidemic, including air pollution and other environmental risk factors.
For Luis Serrano (New Technologies), 63 years old, the jury has rewarded his ability to connect fundamental research and technological development with his contributions in systems biology, synthetic biology and protein design. He has been one of the first scientists to use artificial intelligence (AI), creating the FoldX program to predict protein structures, used by the international community and which has become one of the cornerstones of AI in biomedical research and innovation. .
Sergio Martín (Environmental Protection), 50 years old, has a doctorate in Physical Geography from the University of Zaragoza and professor at the Higher Council for Scientific Research, and has received the award for his leadership and contribution in transforming knowledge of drought, one of the most critical challenges of our time. Specifically, he has developed high-impact methods and indicators to understand the effects of droughts, which have been widely adopted as references to quantify their severity and global impact.
Xavier Trepat (Biomedical Research), 48, is a global authority and pioneer in the field of mechanobiology, a rapidly evolving discipline with profound implications for the understanding of cell biology, embryology and cancer. A cornerstone of his research is the view that cellular mechanics are governed by simple, universal physical laws.
From Francisco Pérez (Economics), 73 years old, the juries have highlighted his solid academic career as a professor of Economics; his leadership as research director of the Valencian Institute for Economic Research (Ivie); and for his services to the profession and the community. His contributions—founded on solid empirical bases and the construction of databases—cover a wide variety of topics, all of them related to the factors that determine the long-term development of the Spanish Economy: especially capital in all its variants, education, evaluation of public policies and the regional economy.
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Víctor Armanani (Entrepreneur), 41 years old, CEO of BigBuy Group, has received this edition the Entrepreneur award for the rapid growth of his company, BigBuy, currently with 300 people on staff. The firm has created a unique, disruptive and pioneering business model to boost digital sales.
Finally, Antonio Acín (Basic Research), 51 years old, stands out, according to the jury, for his revolutionary theoretical contributions in the field of quantum information, with the certification of random numbers of great relevance for the development of quantum communication.
The event, chaired by the head of the Consell, Carlos Mazón, included the president of the King Jaume I Awards Foundation, Vicente Boluda, the president of the Valencian Cortes, Llanos Massó, the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, and the Consell among other authorities, as well as members of the juries, among which are 20 Nobel Prize winners, among other representatives of civil society, business and the field of research.
Mazón has advocated for “retaining and attracting scientific and business talent to guarantee a fairer future for all of society” and has appealed to the unity of public administrations “without partisanship, without calculations or complexes” to achieve this goal. Boluda began his speech with a reminder of the “drive, enthusiasm and, ultimately, legacy” of Santiago Grisolía, who “is still more present than ever.”
Declaration in favor of the Albufera
The jury has supported in its institutional declaration the request that the Albufera de Valencia, the most important coastal wetland in the Mediterranean, be recognized by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve because “it aims to conserve the biological diversity of the natural park and offer means of sustainable subsistence of local communities. The petition for this space, declared a natural park in 1986, is “one more example of collective action” and seeks to “harmonize the conservation of biological and cultural diversity and economic and social development, through the relationship of people with nature.” nature,” the statement states.
The declaration, made public this Tuesday shortly before the deliberations of the jurors, insists that it is an objective that is both local and universal, and that is aligned with at least five of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals approved by the UN General Assembly, states the manifesto.
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