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The Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC) plans to make a formal protest about last week's decision by the Nobel committee to exclude Salvador Moncada from those awarded this year's prize for physiology or medicine.

The award was made to Robert Furchgott, Louis Ignarro and Ferid Murad for the discovery and elucidation of the biological functions of the gas nitric oxide (see Nature 395, 625–626; 1998). No mention was made of Moncada, who has been a prominent figure in the study of the properties of nitric oxide since demonstrating in 1987 that it is identical to Furchgott's endothelium-derived relaxing factor.

Moncada was born in Honduras and educated at the University of El Salvador, and is currently at the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research at University College London. He has long enjoyed close links with cardiology researchers in Spain, partly as a result of a common linguistic and cultural background.

Members of SEC were preparing to release a formal protest to the Nobel committee on Wednesday (21 October) to coincide with the opening of the National Congress of Cardiology in Malaga.

Alfonso Castro Beiras, president of the society and head of the Department of Cardiology at the Juan Canalejo Hospital at La Coruña, says that the note is intended to express SEC's unhappiness that Moncada's contributions to the field of nitric oxide research appear to have been ignored. According to Castro Beiras, many members of the society are expected to voice their criticism during the meeting.

Ironically, Enrique Castellon, deputy head of Spain's Ministry of Health, announced last week that the country's 1999 budget for public health will include an extra US$2.6 million to create a centre for cardiovascular research. The centre will be along similar lines to the recently established National Institute of Oncology, headed by Mariano Barbacid. The new centre's main focus will be studies of nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system.