Santi Balmes

Invitado de Honor

Santi Balmes, born in 1970, is the vocalist and songwriter for the indie band Love of Lesbian, with a career spanning 20 years and featuring acclaimed albums such as Maniobras de escapismo, Cuentos chinos para niños del Japón, 1999, La noche eterna. Los días no vividos and El poeta Halley. The last three albums have reached number one and gone gold without losing their trademark duality of irreverence and boundless lyricism. The band’s large concerts, both in Spain and in Latin America, are known for taking the audience on an emotional rollercoaster. Balmes has also collaborated with numerous artists from his home country. As for his literary work, he is the author of the best-selling children’s story Jo mataré monstres per tu – which has been translated into English (I Will Fight Monsters for You), Danish and Italian – the comic novel ¿Por qué me comprasteis un walkie-talkie si era hijo único? and the short story collection La doble vida de les fades. The novel La Fam Invisible continues the journey he started with his poetry collection Canción de Bruma.

Salvador Macip

Invitado de Honor

Salvador Macip is a doctor, scientist and writer. He is also a professor of Molecular Medicine at the University of Leicester, Dean at the Open University of Catalonia and researcher at the BarcelonaBeta Brain Research Centre. He is the author of 43 fiction and non-fiction books.

Other activities involving the participant:

Secrets of neuroplasticity
Aging hand in hand with science

Mara Dierssen

Invitado de Honor

Doctor Dierssen is Director of the Cellular and Systems Neurobiology Laboratory at the Centre for Genomic Regulation. She has made major contributions to our understanding of intellectual disability and genetic disorders. She has received numerous accolades for her work, including the prestigious Sisley-Lejeune Prize and the National Prize for Scientific Culture awarded by the Government of Catalonia, as well as the Ramón Trias Fargas, Jaime Blanco and Fundación Esteve prizes. These distinctions led to an invitation to contribute to Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2012) and to her election as a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia and the Academia Europaea. She has also been awarded the Silver Medal of the College of Physicians, of which she is an honorary member, and recognised as a Distinguished Alumna of the University of Cantabria.

Other activities involving the participant:

Secrets of neuroplasticity
Authoritarianism: a threat to science

Pere Estupinyà

Invitado de Honor

Pere Estupinyà is a biochemist and science communicator. He is the presenter and director of El Cazador de Cerebros on TVE and the host of the science segment on A vivir (Cadena SER). A former Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, he has written five books and won the CSIC–FBBVA Award for Best Science Journalist in 2024.

Other activities involving the participant:

The secrets of the brain