Javier de Felipe Oroquieta (born 1953,
Madrid) is a research
biologist
A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually specialize in ...
specializing in the anatomical study of the
human brain.
Biography
De Felipe studied
Biology, graduated in 1975 and received his Ph.D. in 1979 from the
Complutense University of Madrid. He completed his postdoctoral training from 1980 to 1983 at the
Cajal Institute,
with research on the cerebral cortex. He continued these investigations in the United States from 1983 at the
Washington University School of Medicine, from 1984 to 1985 at the
University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, where he continued between 1989 and 1991 as a
Visiting scientist. Since 1991 he has been a research professor at the Cajal Institute of the Higher Council for Scientific Research. He is also director, at the Center for Biomedical Technology (CTB) of the
Technical University of Madrid (UPM), of the Cajal Laboratory of Cortical Circuits.
De Felipe returned to the Cajal Institute in 1991 and formed a research team to analyze alterations in the cerebral cortex in patients with epilepsy. In 1997 he participated in
NASA's Neurolab project to study the impact of space flight on neural circuits in the brain. Since 2006 he began researching the effects of
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
on the microstructure and micro-organization of the
cerebral cortex.
De Felipe has participated in the
Blue Brain Project since it began in 2005, led by Professor
Henry Markram
Henry John Markram (born 28 March 1962) is a South African-born Israeli neuroscientist, professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and director of the Blue Brain Project and founder of the Human Brain Proj ...
. The Blue Brain project became an international initiative, in which Spain participates with the
Cajal Blue Brain project led by De Felipe. The Blue Brain project has served as the basis for proposing the global project called the
Human Brain Project
The Human Brain Project (HBP) is a large ten-year scientific research project, based on exascale supercomputers, that aims to build a collaborative ICT-based scientific research infrastructure to allow researchers across Europe to advance knowl ...
of the
European Commission, started in October 2013, with the participation of laboratories and institutions from all over the world. De Felipe is co-director, together with Professor
Seth Grant
Seth Grant is an Australian neuroscientist and Professor of Molecular Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He previously worked as a principal investigator at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, England. He ...
, of the Molecular and
Cellular neuroscience division.
De Felipe has received awards and recognitions such as the ''Krieg Cortical Kudos Award'' from the Cajal Club (United States) in 1999 for his work on the cerebral cortex, the Chair
Santiago Ramón y Cajal
Santiago Ramón y Cajal (; 1 May 1852 – 17 October 1934) was a Spanish neuroscientist, pathologist, and histologist specializing in neuroanatomy and the central nervous system. He and Camillo Golgi received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Med ...
award from the Academy of Sciences of Mexico that he received in 2005, or the appointment in 2013 of Honorary Member of the
American Association for Anatomy
The American Association for Anatomy (AAA), based in Rockville, MD, was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1888 as the Association of American Anatomists for the "advancement of anatomical science." AAA later changed its name to the American Associa ...
for his research on anatomical sciences.
Selected works
* 2009 ''Cajal's Butterflies of the Soul: Science and Art''. .
* 2014 ''The Garden of Neurology: about beauty, art and the brain''. .
* 2017 ''Cajal's Neuronal Forest: Science and Art''. .
* 2022 ''From Laetoli to the Moon.'' The unusual journey of the human brain. .
Awards and achievements
* 1999 The Cortical Discoverer Award: Javier De Felipe. ''Cerebral Cortex'', Volume 9, Issue 5, July 1999, Pages 519–520.
See also
*
Blue Brain Project
*
Henry Markram
Henry John Markram (born 28 March 1962) is a South African-born Israeli neuroscientist, professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and director of the Blue Brain Project and founder of the Human Brain Proj ...
*
Seth Grant
Seth Grant is an Australian neuroscientist and Professor of Molecular Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He previously worked as a principal investigator at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, England. He ...
References
External links
Javier de FelipeCajal Blue Brain Project
Living people
1953 births
Spanish biologists
Complutense University of Madrid alumni
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