Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte (born December 12, 1960, in

Hellín Hellín is a city and municipality of Spain located in the province of Albacete, Castilla–La Mancha. The municipality spans across a total area of 781.66 km2. As of 1 January 2020, it has a population of 30,200, which makes it the second largest ...

Albacete Albacete (, also , ; ar, ﭐَلبَسِيط, Al-Basīṭ) is a city and municipality in the Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha, and capital of the province of Albacete. Lying in the south-ea ...

) is a Spanish biochemist and developmental biologist. He is a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratories at the

Salk Institute for Biological Studies The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute located in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California, U.S. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vacci ...

in La Jolla, California since 1993.

Education

Izpisua graduated from the

University of Valencia The University of Valencia ( ca-valencia, Universitat de València ; also known as UV) is a public research university located in the city of Valencia, Spain. It is one of the oldest surviving universities in Spain, and the oldest in the Vale ...

, Spain with a bachelor's degree in Pharmacy and Science. He then earned a master's degree in Pharmacology from the same university before moving on to complete his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

, Italy and the

, Spain. He followed that with a stage as a postdoctoral fellow in different institutions, including the

European Molecular Biology Laboratory The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to molecular biology research and is supported by 27 member states, two prospect states, and one associate member state. EMBL was created in 1974 and ...

(EMBL), in Heidelberg, Germany and

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

(UCLA), Los Angeles, USA prior to moving to the Salk Institute in 1993.

Career

In 2004, he helped to establish the Center for Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona and was its Director between 2004 and 2014. He is a main catalyzer in one of today's most promising areas of

biomedicine Biomedicine (also referred to as Western medicine, mainstream medicine or conventional medicine)

regenerative medicine Regenerative medicine deals with the "process of replacing, engineering or regenerating human or animal cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish normal function". This field holds the promise of engineering damaged tissues and organs by st ...

. His work may help to discover new molecules and specific gene/cell treatments to prevent and cure diseases affecting mankind both in the adult and embryonic stages, as well as inducing endogenous in vivo regenerative responses that may allow for tissue and organ

regeneration in humans Regeneration in humans is the regrowth of lost tissues or organs in response to injury. This is in contrast to wound healing, or partial regeneration, which involves closing up the injury site with some gradation of scar tissue. Some tissues such ...

. It also may contribute to increase our knowledge of

aging Ageing ( BE) or aging ( AE) is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. In ...

and

aging-associated diseases An aging-associated disease (commonly termed age-related disease, ARD) is a disease that is most often seen with increasing frequency with increasing senescence. They are essentially complications of senescence, distinguished from the aging pr ...

, thereby leading to healthier aging and increased lifespan. His conceptual discoveries and methodologies for

include: * Elucidating some of the key cellular and molecular bases of how an organism with millions of cells develops from a single cell

embryo An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male spe ...

after fertilization. * Seminal discoveries towards understanding the molecular basis underlying somatic cell

reprogramming In biology, reprogramming refers to erasure and remodeling of epigenetic marks, such as DNA methylation, during mammalian development or in cell culture. Such control is also often associated with alternative covalent modifications of histones. ...

*New methodologies for the differentiation of human

stem cells In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can differentiate into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type o ...

into various cells types and

organoids An organoid is a miniaturized and simplified version of an organ produced in vitro in three dimensions that shows realistic micro-anatomy. They are derived from one or a few cells from a tissue, embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem ...

, like the kidney and heart. * Development of novel stem cell models of human

and

, and discovery of new drivers of

rejuvenation Rejuvenation is a medical discipline focused on the practical reversal of the aging process. Rejuvenation is distinct from life extension. Life extension strategies often study the causes of aging and try to oppose those causes in order to slow ...

. * Novel genetic and

epigenetic In biology, epigenetics is the study of stable phenotypic changes (known as ''marks'') that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix '' epi-'' ( "over, outside of, around") in ''epigenetics'' implies features that are "o ...

technologies to both treat, and prevent the transmission, of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA originated diseases. *Proof of concept that iPSC technology can be used for the generation of disease corrected patient specific cells with potential value for cell therapy. *The development of methodologies for culturing embryos, including non-human primates, and creating synthetic mammalian embryos. *Development of technologies that allow differentiation of human cells inside embryos of different species. These results may allow for the generation of human tissues and organs. Belmonte has over 500 publications describing these results. He has also received several awards and honors over the years, a notable one was the naming of a secondary school, Instituto Enseñanza Secundaria (IES) Izpisua Belmonte, in his hometown of

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. In October, 2018, Belmonte was named by ''Time'' Magazine as one of the 50 Most Influential People in Healthcare of 2018. Twice his work was among those selected by Science as the "Breakthrough of the Year," in 2008 for reprogramming and again in 2013 for the generation of mini-organs.

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

reports >52,000 citations for Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, with an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...

of 119 and an

i10-index Author-level metrics are citation metrics that measure the bibliometric impact of individual authors, researchers, academics, and scholars. Many metrics have been developed that take into account varying numbers of factors (from only considering ...

of 365.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Izpisua, Juan Carlos 1960 births Living people Spanish biochemists Salk Institute for Biological Studies people University of Valencia alumni University of Bologna alumni People from Hellín

Education

Career

See also

References