It all started in a pharmacy in Manresa (Barcelona).
Dr. Antoni Esteve i Subirana (1902‒1979), a fifth-generation pharmacist in a lineage of apothecaries dating back to 1787, started preparing original compounds in the back room of the family drugstore in the 1920s.
A few years later, his passion for research would lead him to found Laboratoris Dr. Esteve, S.A., a pharmaceutical company that started out with a few vitamin supplements and went on to produce the first arsenic compound against syphilis and the first sulfonamides to be manufactured in Spain.
Building on his scientific legacy, the Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation was founded 40 years ago.
40
years
724
activities
122
books
392
collaborations with institutions
2.200
researchers mobilized
355.000
visits to its website
Three years after the death of Dr. Antoni Esteve, his wife Paquita Soler and his children Josep, Montserrat, and Joan decided to honor the memory of the illustrious pharmacist by creating the Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation to promote research in pharmacology.
The Foundation got underway with Dr. Josep Esteve i Soler (1930-2019) serving as its president and Dr. Sergi Erill (1938-2020) as its scientific director. Both looked to the model of the CIBA Foundation, founded in 1949, which Lord William Henry Beveridge defined as a “laboratory—not for mixing compounds, but rather for mixing scientists”.
The first international symposium organized by the Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation brought together 30 researchers from all over the world who were investigating protein binding of drugs; Cornell University Medical College’s Marcus Reidenberg acted as the moderator. This event was followed by many other international symposiums dealing with subjects as diverse as the pharmacology of sports, optimal dosing, and sexual pharmacology.
The second major event organized by the Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation brought together researchers from all over Spain for a roundtable discussion of the treatment of severe infections caused by S. aureus. The Foundation has since organized more than 30 roundtables about topics as diverse as advanced therapies, gender perspectives, and research in clinical environments.
The Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation research prizes aim to identify the best pharmacologic study published by Spanish authors in an international journal. The first researchers to receive the award were Dr. Jesús A. García Sevilla and Dr. J.K. Zubieta, working in the Pharmacology Department of the School of Medicine at the University of the Basque Country, for their article about antidepressants published in the British Journal of Pharmacology. Subsequently, 17 prizes have been awarded to researchers at centers all over Spain.
Together with the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, the Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation organized the first International Symposium about Science Journalism, bringing together professionals working in the scientific bureaus of newspapers such as El País, Le Figaro, and La Stampa, as well as representatives from biomedical journals such as New Scientist, Investigación y Ciencia, and The Lancet. This symposium gave rise to the Catalan Association for Scientific Communication, among other initiatives.
The Foundation’s first website presented fixed information about all of its initiatives. Through the years the website has been constantly updated. Today, visitors can download all Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation publications for free and enroll in the different activities that the Foundation organizes. In recent years, www.esteve.org has received an average of 300,000 per year.
This collection consists of books compiling facsimiles of key articles in the history of the different disciplines that make up pharmacology.
The Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation created its first course with the aim of training young scientists in skills all researchers need for their work that are not taught in official curriculums. Courses held in more than 50 cities in Catalonia, other regions of Spain, and even in some foreign countries have trained over 7,600 professionals in skills such as obtaining research grants, writing scientific manuscripts, and interacting with the mass media, to name but a few.
Renowned figures from the scientific, academic, and political realms came together in the Llotja de Mar in Barcelona to honor Dr. Esteve. Attendees included Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former Director-General of UNESCO, Fernando García Alonso, former chief of the director de Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices, and Jordi Pujol, former President of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
This new collection comprises books about diverse subjects related to research and dissemination. Noteworthy titles among the more than 50 notebooks published to date include Medicine in Television Series, Dotze dones en la biomedicina del segle XX, and the Catalan medical eponymy series. All are available free of charge from www.esteve.org.
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The first Esteve Foundation Discussion Group was dedicated to migraines. This new format of activity brings together eight experts to discuss the latest scientific developments in their areas of research in pharmacology. The diverse subjects discussed in the different international discussion sessions include the genetics of addiction, the memory of pain, and heteromers.
To increase the public’s interest in research, it is essential to ensure its presence in the mass media. In a joint venture with the CSIC and RTVE, the Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation launched a new course to foster communication among scientists and journalists. More than 500 investigators have been trained in more than 20 editions of this course.
To help children understand how medications work, the Foundation published the book Els medicaments i jo (Medicines and me) with educational cartoons by Marta Capdevila. Other publications geared toward children and adolescents would follow, including Els misteris del sistema immunitari (Mysteries of the immune system) and La ciència oculta (Hidden science).
The Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation adopted a new look for its 35th anniversary. Kimika study designed a new line of graphics for all the Foundation’s activities and publications, and a new website was inaugurated with a more intuitive interface that would be accessible from different devices. The anniversary also saw the release of a documentary narrating the origins of the Foundation and explaining its mission and activities.
The Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation paid homage to the man who had presided over its activity since its beginnings in 1983, Dr. Josep Esteve i Soler (1930?2019). The act, entitled “Life is an opportunity”, brought friends, colleagues, and family members together to remember his legacy.
While the pandemic was raging, an online debate brought together a score of experts in the spheres of pharmacology, publishing, and scientific communication to analyze the challenges and errors that might have occurred in communicating the results of research into vaccines and medications for COVID-19. Entitled “Impatient science during COVID-19”, this debate moderated by the journalist Núria Jar benefited from the participation of renowned scientists such as Isabel Sola (National Biotechnology Center), Margarita del Val (Molecular Biology Center), and Adolfo García Sastre (Global Health & Emerging Pathogens Institute).
One of the main areas of research that the Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation focuses on is advanced therapies. To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia, the Foundation organized a seminar entitled “Catalonia at the vanguard of biomedicine: from genomics to cell and gene therapy”. Additionally, Manel Juan, chief of the Immunology Department at Barcelona’s Hospital Clínic brought together about 30 scientists specialized in immunotherapy from different research groups in Spain and other countries.
The Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation continues to foster research in pharmacology, facilitating the communication of the latest scientific advances and promoting research among young people.
Focusing on the best research in pharmacology by selecting the most important scientific articles by Spanish researchers published in international journals.
Promoting scientific meetings where important researchers discuss the latest advances in pharmacology.
We help young people develop essential research skills in areas that are not covered in official curriculums, from writing scientific manuscripts to collaborating with the media.
We help young people enter the world of pharmacologic research through grants that make their first steps in the profession easier.
All these projects are carried out in collaboration with prestigious institutions. The Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation collaborates with the main research centers, universities, and scientific institutions in Catalonia.
Disseminating science centered on humanism