Professor Manuel José Barbanoj Rodriguez

his MD in 1985, became a specialist in the field of clinical pharmacology in 2001 and got his second doctorate as PhD in the same year. On the latter occasion, where I had the privilege to participate, he defended his thesis against a ‘tribunal’ questioning him in 3 different languages (Catalonian, Castilian and English), with me representing the English examiner. This examination took place in the beautiful modernist chapel of the HSCSP, with the subsequent party overlooking Barcelona onto the Sagrada Familia and celebrating the arrival of the Spanish Academia in the European Union. In 1998, Manuel José Barbanoj Rodriguez also obtained a Master Degree in On December 11, 2010, Manuel José Barbanoj Rodriguez, MD, full professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau (HSCSP), shockingly passed away during a party celebrating his 50th birthday. Death came in the middle of joy, laughter and dancing when Manuel was celebrating to have overcome a myocardial infarction and the sequels of 4 bypasses, having been discharged from the hospital on July 9, 2010. This is not only a great loss to his mother, friends and the academic staff of the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Facultat de Medicina, UAB/HSCSP, but also to many colleagues and friends around the world, and specifically to the International Pharmaco EEG Group (IPEG), for which Prof. Barbanoj acted as President. Last but not least, his death will be felt with regret in the pharmaceutical industry, as he participated in 366 clinical trials. During his short life, he gathered valuable experience in general clinical pharmacology, CNS pharmacology, sleep research, pharmaco-EEG and pharmacopsychology. He participated mostly in phase 1, but also phase 2 and phase 3 trials, in 62 as collaborating investigator, in 147 as principal investigator and in 158 as scientific director. His expertise covered a broad field, reaching from psychopharmacological methodology to pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD) and PK/PD modelling. Manuel José Barbanoj Rodriguez was born on December 10, 1960 in Terrassa (Barcelona), Spain. He obtained Published online: October 9, 2012