Quick Facts
Biography
Isabel Ballasts Becker (born 1974) is a German-Spanish scientist, of the Department of Biochemistry of the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Madrid.
Life
She graduated in Chemical Sciences, specialising in Biochemistry from the Complutense University of Madrid.
Her investigation centres in the molecular bases of several neurodegenerative illnesses, like Huntington's disease or the Parkinson's disease. In her project, she studies the cause of the death of the neurons in Parkinson's, and experients with drugs to delay the advance of the illness.
Awards
Her work as a researcher has been recognised by the scientific community and has received prizes like the Scientific Achievement Award or the Extraordinary Prize of Doctorate in the Universidad Complutense of Madrid.
In November 2010, she was awarded, with four scientists (María Antonia Smith, Ana Briones Alonso, Mercedes Vila and Elena Ramírez Vine), with the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science, with an endowment of €15000 to reward the work of women younger than 40 years, to support woman in the science.