Profiles
Bernat Soria Escoms: Spanish Health Minister
By h.b.
Aug 25, 2007 - 12:45 PM

Bernat Soria Escoms, considered as one of the world’s leading experts in stem cell research, was named as Spain’s new Health Minister on 6th July 2007, when his predecessor, Elena Salgado, was moved to Public Administration. One of his first comments after hearing of his appointment was that it came as ‘somewhat of a surprise.’

Born in Carlet, Valencia, on 7th May 1951, Bernat Soria is married with two children.
He qualified as a Doctor of Medicine at Valencia University in 1974, achieving his Doctorate in 1978, and Post-Doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, in Göttingen, Germany, in 1980.

His resumé over the following years provides impressive reading:

Senior Research Associate in the Biophysics Department of East Anglia University, in Norwich, UK, from 1982 until 1984.
Associate Professor in the Biochemistry and Physiology Departments of the Schools of Medicine of first Valencia University and then Alicante University between 1982 and 1985. He was also Vice Dean of Valencia’s School of Medicine from May 1983 until October 1984, holding the same position, as well as Acting Dean, in Alicante between December 1985 and March 1986.
Coordinator of the National Agency of Evaluation between 1991 and 1994.
Chairman of Alicante University’s Physiology Department between 1990 and 1997, as well as Full Professor of Physiology and Biophysics from 1986 to 2005.

Bernat Soria was Professor of Physiology at the Miguel Hernández University in Elche from the moment the new university was created in 1997, and also set up the University’s Institute of Bioengineering. His team at the Institute was the first in the world to obtain insulin-producing cells from embryonic stem cells in mice, and later went on in 2001 to successfully apply the same technique with human stem cells – unavailable in Spain at the time, the cells the team used in the research came from the United States.
Soria told the press at the time that Spain’s government told him to discontinue his research with human embryonic stem cells: he decided to accept a post as Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore in 2002 to allow him to continue his studies, while at the same time continuing research in Spain with mouse stem cells.

This eminent researcher was the first President of the European Stem Cell Network created in 2004, and was, until his new appointment as Health Minister, Director of CABIMER – the Andalucía Centre for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine in Sevilla, the largest such centre in Spain, and the first state-funded institute dedicated to stem cell research.
CABIMER, which officially opened in March 2006, is the result of an agreement in 2004 between the Junta de Andalucía, the CSIC Higher Council for Scientific Research, and the Pablo de Olavide University in Sevilla, where Soria holds a Professorship in Physiology. It is one of four centres which the government authorised to carry out stem cell research.

Bernat Soria Escoms, who is the author of three books and has had some one hundred research papers published in scientific journals, is President of the Spanish Diabetes Association and has led a project for pancreatic islet transplants at the Carlos Haya Hospital in Málaga.

His work in his field has been recognised with a number of awards, including the Gold Medal and Award from the Royal Academy of Medicine, the National Research Award from the Spanish Diabetes Association, and the Gold Medal of Andalucía.