graduate Ignacio Sáez, biologist and biochemist, at the forefront of Neurosciences in the USA.

Ignacio Sánez PHOTO: El Mundo

Ignacio Sáez Martínez, graduate in Biology and Biochemistry by the University of Navarra, has been developing his degree program of research in the USA for nine years, where he has specialized in Neurosciences and in the processes that explain how we make decisions in daily life.

His experience, of which he speaks in the section "Researchers for El Mundo" of the newspaper of the same name, began with the doctorate, which he carried out in Houston:"I did the double licentiate degree at the University of Navarra, but while I was finishing, I started to be bitten by the medical research bug. What I wanted to devote myself to was neuroscience".

"Some of my professors had been in the U.S. and advised me to go there, where I could get the best training. So after getting a scholarship, I was in Houston for six years doing a doctorate in electrophysiology," he continues.

Ignacio is currently working at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. "I wanted to return to Spain, but when I finished I saw that it was premature," he says."Neuroscience is a growing field and the discoveries in this area have repercussions in our knowledge on human behavior and a multitude of diseases, but the necessary resources, as often happens in science, are expensive. Here, in the U.S., there is support, many grants and resources," he stresses.

At his center, graduate of the University of Navarra not only investigates how decision making occurs in healthy people, but also in those who suffer some pathology subject :"Parkinson's patients not only have motor difficulties, but also suffer the inability to make a decision at any given time. Although up to now it cannot be cured, there are treatments to alleviate it, both pharmacological and through the surgical implantation of an electrode -deep brain stimulation- which allows them to recover their quality of life".