Distinguished Cajalian | Science in the trenches: fighting the diseases of poverty
Distinguished personality for their exceptional contribution to science and the dissemination of the Cajal Legacy.
Request a Lecture / Collaboration
Contribution to the Cajal Legacy: If Cajal discovered the “territory” of the brain, Antonio Muro explores the territories where health is most vulnerable. He represents science committed to the forgotten.
As a leader in the study of Tropical Diseases, he embodies the vision of medicine as a tool for social justice. But his legacy lies not only in the laboratory but in the classroom and in society. Through pioneering Service-Learning initiatives such as “VacunAPS,” he has taken the university to the streets, teaching his students that science only makes sense if it serves to improve people’s lives. Just as Cajal fought the epidemics of his time, Dr Muro today leads the scientific vanguard organising world-class forums such as the XXIV Congress of the Spanish Society of Parasitology.
Lecture Topics:
- Global Health and “One Health”: Why our health depends on animal and environmental health.
- Teaching Innovation and Social Commitment: The VacunAPS project as a model for training scientists with human values.
- Neglected Diseases: Science as hope for the “bottom billion.”
- Vaccine Innovation: The challenge of immunising against complex parasites.
- Cajal and Infectious Diseases: Remembering Don Santiago’s facet as a military doctor and bacteriologist facing the epidemics of his time.
Antonio Muro is Professor of Parasitology at the University of Salamanca, where he has also served as Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy. He is a Fellow of the Royal National Academy of Pharmacy.
He is the driving force behind the Centre for Research on Tropical Diseases of the University of Salamanca (CIETUS) and directs the e-INTRO group (Infectious and Tropical Diseases) at IBSAL.
His scientific leadership is beyond dispute: as President of the Spanish Federation of Parasitology Societies (FESP) and organiser of the XXIV SOCEPA Congress, he has positioned Spanish parasitology among the international elite.
