Professor Barbacid (Madrid, Spain) got his Ph.D. in Madrid’s Universidad Complutense (1974) and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the US National Cancer Institute (1974-78). In 1978, he started his own research group to study the molecular events responsible for the development of human tumours. His work led in 1982 to the isolation of the first human oncogene, HRAS, and the identification of the first mutation associated with the development of human cancer. These findings, also made independently by two other groups, have been seminal to establish the molecular bases of human cancer. He is also credited with the isolation of the TRK oncogene from a colon carcinoma. This discovery led the Barbacid group to identify in 1991 the TRK family of tyrosine protein kinase receptors as the functional receptors for the NGF family of neurotrophins. In 1988, he joined Bristol Myers-Squibb where he became Vice President, Oncology Drug Discovery. In this position, he pioneered the development of what is now known as “targeted therapies”. In 1998, he returned to Madrid to create and direct the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) which in less than 10 years became one of the top cancer research centres in Europe. In 2011, Barbacid stepped down as CNIO Director to focus on his long-standing interests in identifying therapeutic strategies against KRAS mutant tumors, a mutation that accounts for more than 20% of all human cancers. To date, he has authored 330 publications, including 247 original research articles in journals with impact factor. Currently, his Hirsch "H-index" factor is 123.