Caja Institute, Spain

The Cajal Institute in Madrid

Research in neuroscience has a longstanding tradition in Spain mostly inspired by Nobel Prize winner Santiago Ramón y Cajal and his disciples, for whom the “Instituto Cajal” (IC) was initially conceived in 1934. Five years later the Spanish Government created the National Research Council under the name of Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) and the IC became one of the first centers of this new Institution. The IC is one of the two CSIC centers fully devoted to research in Neuroscience. The Institute moved to its present location in downtown Madrid in a building of 4,500 m2 in 1989. Currently the IC houses 25 independent research teams and around 200 staff, with operating costs close to 9 K€/year.

From its inception the Cajal Institute has contributed to the advance in Neuroscience and has hosted and formed many of the neuroscientists working now in the different Spanish research and academic centers. Along almost one century of life, the Institute has become a center of worldwide reputation, building on the important contributions of its founder to the present day. Current staff of the Institute has been selected under a tight competitive system according to the high standards of the CSIC. Presently, the institute is organized in two departments: Functional and Systems Neurobiology, and Cellular, Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology, which intend to agglutinate research in all major areas of neuroscience. The focus of the IC research can be comprised in five major lines:

–       Mechanisms of neural specification

–       The neuro-vascular unit

–       Processing of neural signals (a new line of work in neuro-prosthetics and bioengineering is being planned to be incorporated in the near future to reinforce this section)

–       Neuroprotection and regeneration

–       Systemic modulators of brain function

Contact information:

Cajal Institute (CSIC)

Avenida Doctor Arce 37

28002 Madrid.

http://www.cajal.csic.es