Sara Borrell Ruiz

Early life and education Sara Borrell Ruiz was born in Madrid and grew up there with her proclaimed liberal family. Her father was imprisoned at the end of the Spanish Civil War due to his ties with the left-wing party, Izquierda Republicana.

Early on, Borrel tried to study agricultural engineering but was denied as she was a women. She decided to study pharmacy and speciliazed in endocrinology at the University of Madrid in 1933. The university was closed during the war, however she was able to graduate in 1940 and eventually obtained her PhD and degree honours in 1944 for her research on the composition of the waters of the Tajo River.

In 1946, under the advice of then secretary-general of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), José María Albareda, Borrell became a postdoctoral student at the Hanna Dairy Research Institute in Ayr, Scotland to study milk proteins under Norman C. Wright, which eventually led Borrell to her interest in hormones.

In 1963, she was in charge of the steroid section at the Gregorio Marañón Institute and later in the year, became a founding member of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry (SEB).

In 1983, she became a professor of neuroendocrinology at the Cajal Institute where she researched the metabolism of adrenal hormones in different animals until her retirement in 1989.

Legacy Her research on hormone analysis was published by the Nature, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, the Biochemical Journal, the Journal of Endocrinology and Hormone Research.

The Carlos III Health Institute named to a grant program of postdoctoral training after her.