The Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas Sols-Morreale (IIBM) is a joint center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). The gestation of the initially named Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas (IIB) began with the transfer from the Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas (CIB) of the CSIC to the new Faculty of Medicine of the UAM, of two particularly relevant personalities: Alberto Sols and Gabriella Morreale.
Alberto Sols García, CSIC Research Professor at the CIB, was a pioneer in the development of Spanish experimental biochemistry with international projection and the person in charge of founding the Biochemistry department of the recently created Faculty of Medicine, to which the CSIC Institute of Enzymology, which he directed, was transferred.
Gabriella Morreale de Castro, CSIC Research Professor at the CIB, was a decisive figure in the creation of the IIB when the Experimental Endocrinology group she headed merged with the Enzymology Institute, led by Alberto Sols.
The Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas is currently called Sols-Morreale in honor of its two founders, thanks to the signing of the CSIC-UAM collaboration agreement in July 2023. The Center is composed of two locations: the Department of Biochemistry, located in the building of the Faculty of Medicine of the UAM, and in an independent building of the CSIC built on a site donated by the UAM. The laboratories of both buildings are indistinctly staffed by personnel from both institutions.
The research carried out at the IIBM focuses on the study of the molecular basis of human pathology with a translational approach, integrating basic and clinical aspects in order to advance in the discovery of diagnostic and therapeutic measures for the benefit of society. The main areas of research include cancer, metabolic and immune diseases, neurological diseases and aging and rare diseases.
The staff of the Joint Center carries out an intense teaching activity in the official teaching at the UAM, in the Degrees of Medicine, Nursing, Biochemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Human Nutrition and Dietetics, and Food Science and Technology. He also teaches in the Masters in Molecular Biomedicine, Biomolecules and Cell Dynamics, Biotechnology, Neuroscience, and Physics of Condensed Matter and Biological Systems, as well as in the Doctoral Program in Molecular Biosciences of the same University.