Queen visits molecular biology centre, Medialab-Prado during Spain trip

AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania on Friday visited Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa (CBMSO) (Centre for Molecular Biology), and Medialab-Prado, in Madrid on Thursday.

Queen Rania, who was accompanying His Majesty King Abdullah on an official visit to Spain that concluded later on Friday, toured the facilities at CBMSO, accompanied by Queen Letizia of Spain. 

Her Majesty met with senior staff members and prominent scientists of the centre and listened to a presentation about the CBMSO’s scientific structure and research areas, according to a statement from her office. 

Queen Rania and Queen Letizia were also briefed on various areas of research such as physiological and pathological development of human T-lymphocytes. 

T-lymphocytes are the cells of the immune system that coordinate the cellular immune response, and they are the cells affected in T-cell lymphomas.

In addition, Her Majesty was briefed on research into “rare diseases”, which are a heterogeneous group of human diseases that generally have a genetic cause. 

Each rare disease affects less than 1 in 2,000 people, and an estimated 50 per cent of them affect children. Only about 400 treatments are approved for the known 7,000 rare human diseases.

Queen Rania and Queen Letizia concluded their tour with a visit to the Lab 421, which works on Drosophila melanogaster developmental biology.

Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly) is used as a model experimental organism for studies in genetics, developmental biology and modelling of human diseases, among other biomedical fields.

In the centre, Drosophila is used to analyse cell signalling, gene expression and neural development, and also for the modelling of human diseases such as cancer and kidney failure.

During their last stop, Queen Rania and Queen Letizia spoke to the laboratory personnel and viewed different specimens of drosophila through microscopes, including homeotic mutations, different eye coloured flies and flies expressing fluorescent proteins in the muscular and cardiac organs, the statement said.

On Thursday, Her Majesty visited the Medialab-Prado in the Spanish capital. She met with its director, Marco Garcia, and senior staff members. 

The Queen toured the lab and checked the various programmes that it works on, including the atomic microscope, emotional furniture, a DIY (do-it-yourself) book scanner, an experimental video game, an open source prosthesis workshop and The Fablab. 

Medialab-Prado is a citizen laboratory for production, research and broadcasting of cultural projects which explores the forms of experimentation and collaborative learning that have emerged from digital networks. It is part of the department of culture and sports of the Madrid City Council, according to the statement.