Dr. Ferran Morell, head of the Pneumology group at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR), has been awarded with the Research Career Prize of the Catalan Institute of Health (ICS) in the hospital category, together with Dr. Antoni Dávalos, researcher of the Health Sciences Research Institute of the Germans Trias i Pujol Foundation (IGTP).Dr. Ferran Morell is a clinician specialized in Pneumology, PhD in Medicine and Surgery and head of the Pneumology Service at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, where he started the first and the only programme available in lung transplantation in Catalonia. In the academic field, he is professor of the Medicine Department of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Regarding research, he has driven several initiatives to improve the study of respiratory diseases such as the creation of a unit of reference in the study of occupational diseases and another unit dedicated to the study of respiratory manifestations of patients with immunodeficiencies. He is also coordinator of the Research Unit in Pneumology and, among his discoveries, he found that the asthma epidemic between 1987 and 1987 in Barcelona was caused by the soya discharge at the port. He has been the chair of prestigious medical societies and the author of more than 240 articles published, many of them on pulmonary fibrosis. Besides Dr. Morell and D. Antoni Dávalos, the ICS has also awarded Dr. Rafel Ramos, researcher of the Primary Health Care Research Center Jordi Gol (IDIAP), during the 6th Research Meeting of the ICS, dedicated to cardiovascular diseases. Dr. David Garcia Dorado, head of the Cardiocirculatory Pathology group has also participated in the session, with a lecture about prevention of ischemic heart diseases and the limitation of its effects in type 2 diabetes. VHIR’s director, Dr. Joan Comella, has also attended the meeting, together with the coordinator of research at the ICS and VHIR’s researcher, Dr. Ricard Pujol, who has presented the excellent results of the seven research centers affiliated to the ICS. "http://www.gencat.net:8000/oics/owa/p52.consulta?v_cont=1605&java=1" More information