May 7, 2021  - Some people settle for the crumbs as a strategy of resilience. While there are certainly better ways to overcome adversity, for the time being we will take the money and run.

April 23, 2021 - You are a foreigner. This changes when they need something from you. Afterward you are a foreigner again. The funny thing is that they think you are unaware.

April 19, 2021 - Current Quotation #29: "Something is happening and you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones?" (Bob Dylan, he appeared so many times in this section). On a personal note, we wish we did not know, but hey...

April, 12, 2021 - Not necessarily a waste of resources to try chasing an artifact, but one has to know where and when to desist.

April 3, 2021 - Current Quotation #28 is an ancient Greek proverb, and a pretty good one given the current times: "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad".

March 27, 2021 - Understanding signaling networks regulated by lipins provides clues to define the immunometabolic response of activated macrophages. All this and a bit more at the annual meeting of the Spanish Society of Immunology.

March 24, 2021 - "Studying without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in” (Leonardo da Vinci, Italian polymath). Spring 2021 group meeting schedule here.

March 23, 2021 - An ancient proverb says that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. However sometimes it is better to walk alone, and the current situation is one of those. Uh, and the friends of my friends are also my friends... what a mess!

March 10, 2021 - Current Quotation #27: "If you look for different results, don't always do the same" (Attributed to Albert Einstein, German physicist, Nobel Laureate in Physics 1921).

March 8, 2021 - Current Quotation #26: "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" (ancient saying, likely of Greek or Arabic origin).

February 26, 2021 - Like two peas in a pod; cells and biomolecules, biomolecules and cells. Phospholipases, from structure to function, and something in the way they move.

February 19, 2021 - Trying to identify possible arachidonic acid sources for prostaglandin biosynthesis in zymosan-stimulated macrophages, and the role of cellular compartmentalization as an effective means to regulate both the levels and nature of eicosanoids produced. Soon in your favorite eicosanoid library!

February 17, 2021 - Current Quotation #25: "Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all things pass away... patience obtains all things" (St. Teresa of Avila, Spanish mystic).

February 16, 2021 - With the new advances in lipidomics, a growing number of unusual fatty acids are being detected. A recent paper in Cell Reports describes desaturase and elongase enzyme activities that drive the increased diversification of fatty acid isomers in prostate cancer cell lines and tissues. An abundant presence of these unconventional fatty acids, including 16:1n-9, is found in neutral lipids, consistent with our previous observations.

February 15, 2021 - Sitting back and waiting for the rain to come is fine as long as the rain finally comes. No rain, no flowers, yes, but no effort, no reward too.

February 8, 2021 - Stanford University people recently published in PLoS Biology their updated list of the world's top scientists across all disciplines, based on Scopus citation data. While bibliometric measures are usually of very limited value, it does not hurt at all that the Stanford University list includes us among the most influential biochemists worldwide (he, he).

February 6, 2021 - Our Paper of the Year 2020 was published last July in Cell Metabolism. Making good use of lipidomics, Hsieh et al. showed that distinct proinflammatory stimuli reshape the macrophage lipid composition in a signal-specific manner. The study raises the provocative idea that manipulating the ability of macrophages to adopt their preferred lipidomic state can be exploited to enhance host defense against bacterial challenge. 

January 18, 2021 - "There are three stages of scientific discovery: first people deny it is true; then they deny it is important; finally they credit the wrong person" (Alexander von Humboldt, German geographer). Winter 2021 group meeting schedule here.

January 15, 2020 - Neverending e-mail exchanges and on-line meetings, lots of paperwork to achieve in the end the same result as if we were allowed to decide by ourselves. Some things will never change. The funny thing is that there is no reason for them not to change.

December 29, 2020 - Group V phospholipase A2 is known to participate in a number of functions of macrophages exposed to interleukin-4, which polarizes the cells to an anti-inflammatory phenotype. In the last article of the Biomolecules special issue on Phospholipases, Koganesawa et al. performed a mass spectrometry analysis of phospholipase A2 products and substrates, using macrophages deficient or not in the group V enzyme, and polarized to either anti-inflammatory (interleukin-4-treated) or pro-inflammatory (lipopolysaccharide plus interferon-g) phenotypes. The study identified selective changes between the different activation regimes, suggesting the existence of novel lipid pathways and functions critical for inflammation that may rely on the group V enzyme.

December 17, 2020 - Current Quotation #24: "I do not speak of revenge or forgiveness, forgetting is the only revenge and the only forgiveness" (Jorge Luis Borges, Argentinian writer).  .

December 14, 2020 - Little by little, we are making inroads into fields never plowed. Whether the harvest will be abundant or paltry in the fall it is yet too soon to predict.

December 3, 2020 - Current Quotation #23: "If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas" (English proverb). Nothing can be done about it, but still no way out.   

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