Gabriella Morreale de Escobar facts for kids

Gabriella Morreale de Escobar (born in 1930, died December 4, 2017) was a brilliant Spanish chemist who was born in Italy. She was an expert on the thyroid, a gland in your neck. Gabriella and her husband, Francisco Escobar del Rey, made a very important discovery: they showed that special hormones from the mother's thyroid gland cross the placenta (the organ that connects the mother to the baby) during pregnancy. These hormones are super important for a baby's brain to grow and develop properly. Thanks to her work, Spain started a national program to check newborn babies for a thyroid problem called congenital hypothyroidism. She also helped introduce iodised salt to prevent thyroid issues caused by not getting enough iodine.

Her Life and Discoveries

Gabriella Morreale was born in 1930 in Milan, Italy. Her father, Eugenio Morreale, was a biologist and diplomat from Sicily, and her mother, Emilia de Castro, was also a biologist who worked at a natural history museum. Gabriella went to school in different places like Vienna, Austria, and Baltimore, United States, before finishing her high school studies in Málaga, Spain.

She then studied chemistry at the University of Granada, where she earned her doctorate degree. Her research for her doctorate showed that a condition called endemic goitre (a swollen thyroid gland) was common in a region called the Alpujarras because people there didn't get enough iodine. In 1953, she married Francisco Escobar del Rey, and they worked together on science for the rest of their lives.

Gabriella and Francisco traveled to Leiden, the Netherlands, to do more research on how thyroid hormones work in the body. They used special types of iodine to study this. In 1958, they came back to Spain and started working at the Spanish National Research Council. From 1963 to 1975, Gabriella led the thyroid studies part of a research institute in Madrid.

In 1974, Morreale and Escobar started working at the Autonomous University of Madrid. There, they helped create a new research center called the Instituto de Investigaciones Biomedicas. Early in her career, Gabriella's research, often using animal studies, proved that one thyroid hormone, thyroxine (T4), changes into another important hormone called triiodothyronine (T3). She also developed sensitive ways to measure T3 and T4 in the body.

One of her most important discoveries was showing that in pregnant women, thyroid hormones from the mother move through the placenta to the baby. This transfer of T4 is vital for the baby's brain to develop well. Her research led to two major changes in Spain:

• A national program to check all newborn babies for congenital hypothyroidism, a condition where a baby's thyroid doesn't work properly from birth. Catching this early can prevent serious problems.
• The introduction of iodised salt in Spain. This helped prevent endemic goitre and other thyroid problems caused by not having enough iodine in the diet.

Gabriella Morreale also helped start the European Thyroid Association and was its president from 1978 to 1980. She received an honorary doctorate degree in medicine from the University of Alcalá in 2001. In 2008, she became an honorary member of the European Society of Endocrinology. She passed away on December 4, 2017, at the age of 87.

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