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Biography of Gabriella Morreale

Gabriella Morreale, renovator of experimental Endocrinology in Spain with an extraordinary impact in the area of public health.

Gabriella Morreale was born on April 7, 1930 in Milan, daughter of the Sicilian biologist and diplomat Eugenio Morreale and the Milanese Emilia de Castro, also a biologist. She lived in Vienna and Baltimore before settling with her family in Malaga at the age of 11. In 1953 she married Spanish physician and surgeon Francisco Escobar del Rey, becoming a Spanish citizen. She graduated in Chemistry and obtained her doctorate in 1955 at the University of Granada.

She completed her training at the University of Leiden (Netherlands), and on her return to Spain in 1958 she joined the CSIC as a Scientific Collaborator. Her research work was initially carried out at the Gregorio Marañón Institute within the CIB, where she founded the Section on Thyroid Studies, later being the Institute of Experimental Endocrinology and Metabolism. As a result of a gas explosion that affected the CIB, in 1976 she moved with her group to the premises of the UAM School of Medicine. The presence there of another group originating from the CSIC, led by Alberto Sols as head of the Institute of Enzymology, led to the creation of the Institute of Biomedical Research (Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas) through the merger of the enzymology and endocrinology groups, formalized in 1984. Precisely, the surname “Biomédicas” recognizes the research of Dr. Morreale and her group.

Gabriella Morreale played an outstanding role in the development of experimental endocrinology in Spain. Her basic research work laid the foundation for understanding the metabolism of thyroid hormones in health and disease.

The social impact of the work carried out by Gabriella Morreale throughout her life in terms of contributions in the area of Public Health is enormous. On the one hand, she demonstrated that the endemic goiter in some regions of Spain was due to iodine deficiency, and she played a fundamental role in its eradication by introducing iodized salt in the market. On the other hand, after demonstrating the essential role of thyroid hormones of maternal origin in fetal brain development during pregnancy, she introduced in the seventies of the 20th century the early detection test for congenital hypothyroidism, and therefore for the consequent irreversible mental deficiency associated with this disease, by assessing hormones in blood from the newborn's heel based on a methodology developed in her laboratory. The heel prick test was subsequently introduced worldwide under the auspices of UNICEF, and in 1990 the WHO recommended that women take iodine supplements during pregnacy.

Throughout her scientific career, she trained researchers who have subsequently been recognized internationally as leaders in the field of thyroid hormones. After her mandatory retirement in 1995, she continued to work tirelessly as Doctor ad honorem until 2010. She died in Madrid in 2017.