Has been Mauro Maccarrone, professor UCBM, to win the Mechoulam Award 2016, recognition established by the International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS) "For outstanding contribution to cannabinoid research". The award ceremony took place in Bukovina, Poland, during the conference that annually brings together the over 500 members registered at ICRS, a company based in the United States, the research arm of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which in turn belongs to the National Institutes of Health. The institution brings together all the major international scholars of phytocannabinoids, molecules present in some plant extracts of hemp that exert stimulation on the human brain, and of endocannabinoids, lipid compounds produced by the body itself that perform important activities both on the brain and on the organs peripheral.
Teacher award UCBM by the most important international scientific society
The ICRS, with this award, wanted to recognize the important contribution that prof. Maccarrone has contributed to this specific research field over the years. The teacher was awarded the prize by Raphael Mechoulam, the scientist who, discovering the THC molecule, began research on cannabinoids in the 60s and, thirty years later, on endocannabinoids, very important studies above all for the development of medicines such as antidepressants and painkillers.
The research of prof. Maccarrone. Over the years, he and his team have demonstrated how these molecules are produced and degraded by the body itself and how they work. Studies which then explained some fundamental alterations of multiple sclerosis and which also made it possible to discover that, through a specific blood test, it is possible to understand if one is at risk of miscarriage. But that's not all: it was the same research team that developed a series of innovative methods that are now used all over the world to study cannabinoids. Over two decades of research activity during which the professor's studies have been published in the most important scientific journals in the world of medicine: first of all the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medicine Association and the Lancet. "But fortunately the Mechoulam Award is not a lifetime achievement award", smiles the professor: there is still a lot to discover.
