On 5 May 2026, at 12:00, the Paraninfo Hall of the University of Zaragoza will host Cajal Day, a single event that brings together four landmark moments: the presentation of the project awarded the Cajal Chair Grant, a donation to the University of Zaragoza, the VII Cajal Lecture by Professor Mateo Valero, and the first Cajal Gold Medal awarded to Professor Carlos López-Otín.
The Cajal Chair: Picking Up the Torch
The Santiago Ramón y Cajal Chair of the University of Zaragoza was founded to continue the legacy of the Aragonese Nobel laureate. Cajal had to largely self-fund his research by selling his textbooks on Histology and Pathological Anatomy, and in his will he established four bequests dedicated to promoting Spanish science: to the Faculty of Medicine of Zaragoza, to that of Madrid, to the Academy of Medicine, and to the Cajal Prize of the Academy of Sciences. The Chair takes up that same spirit: supporting, through competitive grants, young researchers with disruptive ideas in biomedicine.
It is constituted by the University of Zaragoza, the Merck Salud Foundation, the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital Foundation and the Spanish Society of Pathological Anatomy. Its Scientific Committee is chaired by Santiago Ramón y Cajal Agüeras, great-grand-nephew of the Nobel laureate and Professor of Pathological Anatomy, and its secretary is Alberto J. Schuhmacher, Distinguished Cajalian and ARAID researcher at the Aragon Health Research Institute.
Maialen Sebastián de la Cruz · RNA Memory
The event will open with Dr Maialen Sebastián de la Cruz, awarded a Cajal Chair Grant for her project RNA Memory: Epitranscriptomics as a Link between Viral Infections and Autoimmunity. The research — funded with up to €80,000 over two years — is carried out at the FunImmune laboratory on the Leioa campus of the University of the Basque Country, co-led by Dr Ainara Castellanos-Rubio (Ikerbasque) and Dr Izortze Santin.
Epitranscriptomics is the study of the chemical modifications that RNA undergoes after transcription and how they regulate key cellular processes. Sebastián’s hypothesis is that viral infections leave a lasting “fingerprint” on the host’s RNA that, over the long term, may trigger autoimmune diseases. A disruptive idea — in the spirit of Cajal — that brings together virology, immunology and one of the most active frontiers of contemporary biomedicine.
A Donation to the University of Zaragoza
Pedro Ramón y Cajal Agüeras, great-grand-nephew of Don Santiago, will make a donation to the University of Zaragoza, strengthening the bond between the family Legacy and the Nobel laureate’s venerada alma mater.
VII Cajal Lecture · Mateo Valero
The Cajal Lecture has been held annually since 2019 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s enrolment at the University of Zaragoza. This seventh edition will be delivered by Professor Mateo Valero Cortés, born in Alfamén (Zaragoza, 1952), holder of a Doctorate in Telecommunications Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, and founding director of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) since 2004.
Valero is one of the architects of European supercomputing. Under his leadership, the BSC has grown from around sixty staff to more than 1,400 professionals, has delivered five generations of the MareNostrum supercomputer — today one of the most powerful in the world — and is now preparing MareNostrum 6 as a symbol of European digital sovereignty. He has received the three most prestigious awards in computer architecture: the Eckert-Mauchly Award 2007 (considered the Nobel of computing), the Seymour Cray 2015 and the Charles Babbage 2017, as well as the Spanish National Awards Julio Rey Pastor and Leonardo Torres Quevedo, and he is a founding member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering. In his home village of Alfamén, the public school bears his name.
His lecture will focus on supercomputing, artificial intelligence and European technological autonomy: how large supercomputers — with MareNostrum at the forefront — are transforming the way science is done, and why Europe needs to design its own chips and develop an ethical framework for AI rather than leaving it in the hands of others.
First Cajal Gold Medal · Carlos López-Otín
The event will culminate with the award of the first Cajal Gold Medal to Professor Carlos López-Otín “for his brilliant and exemplary research and human career.” Born in Sabiñánigo (Huesca, 1958), Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oviedo and full member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences.
López-Otín is one of the world’s leading figures in the study of cancer and the biology of aging. His group has identified more than 60 new human proteases involved in tumour processes and accelerated aging syndromes; he has described the “molecular hallmarks of aging” — a conceptual framework cited tens of thousands of times — and has pioneered a new medical discipline: geromedicine. Among his many awards are the Santiago Ramón y Cajal National Research Prize, the Jaime I Research Award, the FEBS 25th Silver Jubilee, and the Honorary Doctorate from the University of Zaragoza, granted in 2015.
Cajal’s Seeds Keep Bearing Fruit
Maialen Sebastián, in the Basque Country, investigating how viruses leave traces on our RNA; Mateo Valero, from Alfamén to Barcelona, building the digital brains of the 21st century; Carlos López-Otín, from Sabiñánigo to Oviedo, deciphering the mechanisms of aging. Three trajectories, three generations and three territories linked by a single thread: the legacy of an Aragonese scientist who a hundred years ago had already turned Madrid into the world capital of neurohistology and who still inspires those who believe that science is, as he himself wrote, “the only aristocracy” of nations.
On 5 May, the University of Zaragoza — Cajal’s venerada alma mater — will once again be the natural stage for that continuity.
Cajal Day · University of Zaragoza
📅 Tuesday, 5 May 2026 · 12:00
📍 Paraninfo Hall · Edificio Paraninfo (Plaza Basilio Paraíso, 4) · Zaragoza
🌐 catedracajal.org · cultura.unizar.es
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Full programme in PDF — Docs.Santiagoramonycajal
