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Juana Maria Pasquini, better known to everybody as "Giannina" Pasquini, was born in Cordoba, Argentina. Most of her studies were done in Bueno s Aires, where she graduated with degrees in pharmacy in 1961 and in biochemistry in 1964, at the School of Pharmacy and Biochemistry of the University of Buenos Aires. In 1964 she started working in research under Professor Carlos J. Gomez, one of the pioneers of neurochemistry in Argentina.
Giannina's doctoral thesis, "The Effects of Neonatal Thyroidectomy on Brain Maturation in the Rat," done under the direction of Dr. Gomez, was awarded the Faculty Prize for the best thesis in 1971. In the same year, she was admitted as a member of the National Research Council of Argentina (CONICET), where she has been promoted over the years to her present position as Principal Investigator. Giannina has also had a very active and remarkable career at the University of Buenos Aires, starting as an Associate Professor of Biochemical Pathology at the School of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, where she is now Professor. In 1986 she was elected Dean of the School of Pharmacy and Biochemistry of the University of Buenos Aires and served in that capacity for 4 years.
Her keen interest in neurochemistry took her initially to the laboratories of Professor Ranwell Caputo in Cordoba, where she spent a few months in 1966 as a Visiting Scientist. A few years later, she was invited to work at the Eunice Kennedy Center for Mental Retardation in Massachusetts (an institution affiliated with the Harvard Medical School), and in 1974, she joined the group headed by Professor G. Porcellatti at the University of Perugia, Italy, where she stayed for 6 months.
She later joined the group of Eduardo F. Soto, who was working at that time at the Institute headed by...