Carlos Belmonte Martínez

El Doctor Carlos Belmonte (Albacete, España, 1943) es un neurocientífico español. Ha obtenido diversos premios de investigación nacionales e internacionales, de entre los cuales destaca el Premio de Investigación Rey Jaime I en Neurociencias y el Premio Nacional de Investigación en Medicina Gregorio Marañón y los Premios Alcon Award,Endre Balazs on Eye Research and European Vision Award. Es doctor en Medicina por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid y miembro de la Real Academia Nacional de Ciencias (España), Academia Europea Akademie der Wissenschaft Mainz (Alemania) y varias Academias de Medicina en España. Es Doctor Honoris Causa por la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha. Es Presidente de la International Brain Research Organization y lo ha sido de la Sociedad Española de Neurociencias. Ha sido Vicerrector de la Universidad de Alicante, Decano de su Facultad de Medicina y Director de 1989 a 2009 del Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante, Centro mixto del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas y la Universidad Miguel Hernandez. Desde el año 2009 forma parte del equipo investigador de la Fundación de Investigación Oftalmológica (Instituto Oftalmológico Fernández-Vega).

Entre sus principales hallazgos científicos está la demostración de que las propiedades de las neuronas sensoriales primarias dependen del tipo de receptor sensorial que inervan.

También ha demostrado la existencia de un circuito nervioso para la regulación de la presión intraocular.

Ha realizado la primera descripción funcional de los tipos de receptores sensoriales oculares, en concreto de los nociceptores, i.e., los receptores encargados del dolor. También ha demostrado que éstos poseen mecanismos separados para la detección de estímulos mecánicos y químicos o térmicos.

Es autor o coautor de 10 libros y más de 150 artículos científicos y comunicaciones a Congresos Nacionales e Internacionales.

Publicaciones mas significativas (10 últimos años) 1- Zhang X, Mak S, Li L, Parra A, Denlinger B, Belmonte C, McNaughton PA (2012). Direct inhibition of the cold-activated TRPM8 ion channel by Gαq. Nat Cell Biol.14:851-858. 2- Parra A, Madrid R, Echevarria D, del Olmo S, Morenilla-Palao C, Acosta MC, Gallar J, Dhaka A, Viana F, Belmonte C. (2010) Ocular surface wetness is regulated by TRPM8-dependent cold thermoreceptors of the cornea. Nat Med. 16:1396-1399. 3- García-Sanz, N., Valente, P., Gomis, A., Fernández-Carvajal, A., Fernández-Ballester, G., Viana, F., Belmonte, C., Ferrer- Montiel, A. (2007) A Role of the Transient Receptor Potential Domain of Vanilloid Receptor I in Channel Gating. J. Neurosci. 27:11641–11650. 4- Madrid, R., Donovan-Rodríguez, T. Meseguer, V., Acosta, M.C., Belmonte C, Viana, F. (2006) Contribution of TRPM8 channels to cold transduction in primary sensory neurons and peripheral nerve terminals. J. Neurosci. 26:12512-12525 5- C. Belmonte and Felix Viana.(2006) Transduction and encoding of noxious stimuli.(Section Editor) En: Encyclopedia of Pain. R.F. Schmidt & W. Willis, Eds. Springer-Verlag. Berlin, Alemania. 2515-2528, Vol. 3. 6- Belmonte C and Tervo, T.T. (2005) Pain in and around the eye.En: Wall and Melzack’s Textbook of Pain. 5th Edition. S. McMahon & M. Koltzenburg Eds. Elsevier Science, London. 7- de la Peña, E., Malkia, A., Cabedo, H., Belmonte, C., Viana, F. (2005) The contribution of TRPM8 channels to cold sensing in mammalian neurones. J.Physiol 1, 567 :415-426. 8- Gomis, A., Pawlak, M., Balazs E.A., Schmidt, R.F., Belmonte, C. (2004). Effects of different molecular weight viscoelastic solutions on articular nociceptive afferents. Arthritis & Rheumatism, 50:1:314-326. 9- Garcia-Martinez, C., Humet, M. Planells-Cases, Gomis, A., Caprini, M., Viana, F., de la Peña, E., Sanchez-Baeza, F, Carbonell, T., de Felipe, C., Perez-Payá, E., Belmonte, C. Messeguer, A., Ferrer-Montiel, A.(2002) Attenuation of chemical and thermal nociception and hyperalgesia by novel VR1. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 99:2374-2379 10- Viana, F., de la Peña, E., Belmonte, C. (2002). Specifity of cold thermotransduction is determined by differential ionic channel expression. Nature Neuroscience 5:254-260.

Referencias

Datos: Q5555863

Carlos Belmonte (Spain, 1943) obtained his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Madrid Medical School, where he became an Associated Professor in 1971. He has been afterwards Professor and Chairman of Human Physiology in the Medical Schools of Valladolid and Alicante, where he served as Vicepresident of the University and Dean of its Medical School. In 1990 he founded and directed until 2007 the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante, a joint Center of the University and the National Research Council (CSIC) that is the largest research institution in Spain devoted to the brain. A former NIH International Fellow in USA, Dr. Belmonte has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Harvard, Utah (USA) and New South Wales (Australia). He is a member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Neuroscience, Experimental Eye Research, Pain and Molecular Pain, among others. Dr. Belmonte is (2008-2013) the President of the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO). He has been President of the Spanish Society of Neurocience, the International Society for Eye Research (ISER) and of the Spanish Society of Medical Education. He is a member of the Academia Europaea. Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Spain and of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz, Germany . Dr. Belmonte obtained several national Prizes in Spain for his research in Neurosciences, presented by the Kings of Spain. In in eye research he has been awarded with the Alcon Research Excellence Award, the Endre A. Balazs Prize and the European Vision Award. His research work has been centred on the functional study of ocular sensory innervation, ocular pain, transduction in sensory receptors and functional properties of primary sensory neurons particularly nociceptive and thermal neurons.