The López Piñero Institute for the History of Medicine and Science (joint centre of the University of Valencia and the CSIC), based at the Palau de Cerveró, presents the seminar La JAE y el desarrollo de la microbiología (The Board for Advanced Studies and Scientific Research and the development of microbiology), which will take place next Tuesday 17 December, at 17:00, in the Institute's conference room. The seminar will be taught by Alfonso Carrascosa, professor at the Institute of Food Science Research (UAM-CSIC) and coordinator of the commission "History of Spanish Microbiology" of the Spanish Society for Microbiology.

Microbiology as a scientific discipline emerged during the second half of the 19th century, mainly because of the studies by the French chemist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895). He was interested in agrifood issues, such as fermentation or the diseases affecting silkworms, and greatly contributed to formulating the germ theory of disease. The arrival of this discipline in Spain, which entered through the fields of medicine, agrifood and naturalism, resulted in the creation of institutes devoted to its research.

The Board for Advanced Studies and Scientific Research (JAE, Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas) was created in 1907 in Spain, under the constitutional monarchy of Alfonso XIII. The first president of the Board was Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934), who had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Phisiology the previous year. The JAE offered grants for the training of specialists in microbiology and founded the Laboratory of Bacteriology and Serology at the Student's Residence, which was more devoted to teaching. The creation in 1931 of the Fundación Nacional para la Investigación Científica y Ensayos de Reforma (Spanish Foundation for Scientific Research and Reform Studies) sought to link science with technology and its industrial use, and led to the establishment of the Centro de Investigaciones Vinícolas (Wine Research Centre). The Centre was chaired by the agronomist Juan Marcilla (1886-1950) who introduced, along with other researchers, microbiology at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas).

Regarding the speaker, Alfonso V. Carrascosa has a doctorate in Biological Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid and works as a scientist at the CSIC. He has collaborated with major institutions related to food safety, such as ENAC or AENOR, and to industrial research management, such as CDTI. Co-author of several patents transferred to companied and of many scientific articles published in international journals, he was awarded, along with his colleagues, the Gold Medal of Merit for Wine Research in 2007, the Royal Galician Academy Science Award in 2009 and the OIV award in 2011. He currently coordinates the commission History of Spanish Microbiology of the Spanish Society for Microbiology (SEM, Sociedad Española de Microbiología), participates in the edition of a collective book under the same name and is co-author of the Diccionario Biográfico Español de la Real Academia de Historia (Spanish Biographical Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy of History).