
Chateando con la Ciencia: Isabel Medina
Chateando con la Ciencia: “Food in the 21st century: what can the sea bring us” – Thursday 20 April
On Thursday 20th April, at 19:00h, a new session of the VII edition of the Cycle of colloquiums “Chateando con la Ciencia” will take place, organised by the Real Zaragoza Tennis Club with the collaboration of the Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón, INMA(CSIC-University of Zaragoza) with the conference entitled “Food in the 21st century: what can the sea bring us?”, to be given by Isabel Medina Méndez, CSIC Research Professor at the Institute of Marine Research in Vigo.
Summary: The history of humanity is linked to the history of food. Food choices, together with climatic changes, have provoked important variations – at the anatomical and physiological level – in the human body. The abundance of fish and algae in coastal areas is associated with the development of brain capacity in hominids, thanks to their omega-3 fatty acids, components of the brain and essential for human health. In fact, fish is part of our cuisine and culture. In modern societies, the prevalence of poor consumption habits is associated with a high incidence of metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity, and cardiovascular disease, one of the leading causes of mortality today. The consumption of fish and seafood products is an essential element that contributes to healthy diets and personalised nutrition.
Isabel Medina Méndez is a CSIC Research Professor at the Institute of Marine Research of Vigo (IIM). D. in Chemistry from the Univ. of Santiago de Compostela 1994, she did her doctoral thesis at the IIM-CSIC in the field of lipids in fishery products. She has worked at the Universities of Davis (USA), Naples and Guilford (UK). She is an expert in food chemistry and analysis, particularly in marine lipids and omega-3 fatty acids, and applies this experience to the study of the quality, safety and nutritional value of fishery and aquaculture products. He combines Lipidomics research with clinical research and Redox Proteomics to establish the role of fishery and aquaculture product consumption on metabolic and neurovegetative diseases. He has been PI in more than 40 national and international projects and contracts with the private sector. She has published more than 150 SCI articles with an h-index of 39 and is the author of 8 patents, some of them transferred to industry. She has supervised doctoral theses in Spain and abroad. She has been National Coordinator of the Food Science and Technology Area of the CSIC. She has been a member of the coordination team of Food, Agriculture and Livestock of the National Evaluation Agency, and Vice-President of the SEAFOODPLUS Research Platform, International Platform on Fisheries and Aquaculture products. She is a member of the Doctoral School of the University of Florence. In 2016 she received the First Prize of the Galician Royal Academy of Sciences, and in 2020 she joined the Royal Academy as a full member.
In order to access the talk, it is necessary to request an access code to the following e-mail address: palacio@unizar.es.