Half a century after the start of its first selective program, the School of Science the University of Navarra is commemorating 50 years of teaching research significant implications for the development the region. To mark the occasion, the School is holding an alumni meeting on Friday and Saturday, October 23 and 24. Among other dignitaries, the event will be attended by the President, Ángel J. Gómez-Montoro, and the Regional Minister for Rural Affairs and the Environment, Begoña Sanzberro.

Over the past five decades, School of Science third-largest School of Science has graduated more than 7,000 students—2,763 of whom are from Navarre—and more than 725 researchers have completed their thesis in one of its 10 Departments most of which are interfaculty and interdisciplinary.
"In this way, the area Science has contributed to the training many doctors and pharmacists from Navarre in the fields of Biochemistry Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Microbiology," recalls its Dean, Ignacio López-Goñi. In fact, he notes that its electron microscope—the first in Navarre and the second in Spain—enabled advances in Cellular Biology.

"The School of Science also School of Science the first Soil Map of Navarre: the first cartographic study at a scale of 1:50,000 ever conducted in Spain—and in Europe—covering such a large geographical area," explains the professor. He also adds that in the 1980s, the department Microbiology and Parasitology in the eradication of infectious diseases such as brucellosis in Navarre, preventing the culling of thousands of animals.

Furthermore, programs of study patients admitted to hospitals in the region were pioneers in Spain. "In fact, the most recent research by department Genetics leukemia has received one of the highest levels of support in the latest edition of 'Tú eliges, tú decides' by Caja Navarra," emphasizes Ignacio López-Goñi.

Bértiz: reference letter in the fight against environmental pollution

On theenvironmental front, since 2005 the School of Science the only Spanish institution participating in the International Cooperation Programme on Integrated Monitoring (ICP-IM), part of the Geneva Convention, which goal the state of ecosystems; as well as to develop and validate models to predict their evolution and ensure their conservation.

According to its director, the researcher of department of Chemistry and Soil Science Jesús Miguel Santamaría, "in the study, which takes place in the Señorío de Bértiz, more than 4,000 samples of different nature are processed annually in which about 60,000 parameters are determined. These data will allow us, among other things, to make forecasts on the evolution of this and other similar ecosystems".

So far, the specialist confirms that the results obtained "indicate a great state of conservation of the Bértiz beech forest, which has a very high biodiversity. Regarding the levels of pollutants, these are those corresponding to a rural area. Moreover, retrospective analyses have shown that contamination in the area was higher in the 19th century, mainly due to the coal mines that fed the nearby forges".

Finally, Jesús Miguel Santamaría warned that in the case of nitrogen -a harmful substance that has shot up all over Europe due to the increase in traffic- "Bértiz is at the threshold from which damage can begin to be observed. Therefore, it is vitally important to continue monitoring the evolution of this pollutant to determine whether changes are really occurring in biodiversity".

Interview on 98.3 Radio