The YouTube channel of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) already has the video summary of the admission act as a corresponding academician of Pere Joan Cardona, doctor in Medicine and Surgery and director of the Experimental Tuberculosis Unit of the Research Institute Germans Trias i Pujol, which was held in Barcelona on October 23. The recipient read the admission speech “Unitat de Tuberculosi Experimental, 20 anys d’història” (Experimental Tuberculosis Unit. 20 years of history). Full academician Emili Gironella, doctor in Economics, answered on behalf of the RAED.
In his presentation, the new academician makes a detailed journey through the history of this pioneering research unit since its implementation in 1997. “It was when the incredible circumstance that made the construction of the high security facility possible occurred. The unusual determination of the then manager of the Hospital and his Research Institute, together with the head of the Microbiology Service, led to the construction of a singular facility in Europe”, explains Cardona. Many of its successes, such as the development of the RUTI vaccine, which takes its initials from the popular name of the hospital complex where the Institute is located, or the food supplement Mycobacterium Manresensi, in homage to the place of origin of the new academician, are for Cardona the fruit of that determined commitment to research that should be an example.
“At that time, only four years ago the World Health Organization had declared for the first time in history the global emergency against tuberculosis, that is, the certification of a resounding failure, since when I was studying Medicine, tuberculosis was referenced in the category of diseases such as smallpox or polio, that is, diseases that are extinct or about to become extinct, nothing is further from reality”, explains the new member of the RAED, internationally recognized for his studies on tuberculosis since an immunopathogenic point of view.
