2016_10_10_CIE_naukas

The Full Professor of Microbiology at the University of Navarra, and science popularizer with his blog microBio, Ignacio López-Goñi, has received one of the three Tesla prizes of knowledge dissemination Science awarded at Naukas Bilbao 2016, an event held in the Biscayan capital since 2011 and which brings together the best science popularizers in Spain.

This year, its fifth edition has had 52 monologuists and Pedro Duque -astronaut-, and María Blasco -CNIO director- as part of the invited scientists. Conceived as a meeting between science and society through knowledge dissemination proposals that combine science and humor, the event is completed with thematic workshops, workshops for children, etc.

And what is the confetti for?

Professor López-Goñi dedicated his monologue to explaining why vaccines can save our lives. Taking as an example the measles virus -which in 2014 caused the death of 115,000 children in the world and which in 10% of cases is fatal-, the Full Professor showed "empirically" -by throwing confetti as if they were viruses exhaled after a sneeze- that contagion is very easy to produce, while at the same time very difficult to control.

As the professor of Microbiology at the University of Navarra recalled, "vaccines protect the person who receives them and also his or her environment, where there may be immunosuppressed people who would otherwise be much more exposed". "The health of others depends on you getting vaccinated," the expert emphasized. And his message earned him one of the three awards granted in this edition to the best science communicator in Spain.