In memoriam of Dr. Braulio Manuel Fraga González

The Institute of Natural Products and Agrobiology announces with great sadness the death of Dr. Braulio Manuel Fraga González. Dr. Fraga González was Research Professor in the Department of Molecular Sciences of the Institute of Natural Products and Agrobiology for more than forty years. After his retirement, he continued his work as "Ad Honorem" Professor at the institution, where he also served as Director from 1988 to 1991. His institutional duties led him to be Delegate of the CSIC in the Canary Islands from 1991 to 2014. 

Retired in 2020, Dr. Fraga González received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of La Laguna in 1970 and obtained the position of Senior Scientist at the CSIC in 1972, where he later became a Research Scientist (1986) and Research Professor (1987), working at what was then known as the Institute of Organic Natural Products. In addition, in 1976-1977 he completed a postdoctoral stay at the School of Molecular Sciences of the University of Sussex (United Kingdom). He was appointed Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Valencia (1981), subsequently becoming Professor of this speciality in 1983. He was also a member of the Steering Committee of the Phytochemical Society of Europe and the Editorial Board of the scientific journals Phytochemical Analysis and Steroids. His research topics focused on the isolation, structural elucidation, partial synthesis, biosynthesis and biotransformation of natural products obtained from fungi and plants, not only from natural species of the latter but also from transformed tissue and root cultures. Throughout his career, he supervised twenty-five doctoral theses and published more than 230 scientific articles. In 2021 his name was featured in a Stanford University report published in the journal PLOS Biology as one of the top 2% of the most cited scientists on the planet.