Professor Salvador Moncada, Director of the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research at University College London, has received a knighthood in the Queen's New Years Honours List published today. Sir Salvador, who gave the first Dundee Cell Signaling Lecture in 1998, has made many important contributions to science including the discovery that aspirin inhibits the synthesis of prostaglandins and the discovery of nitric oxide synthase, the enzyme that converts arginine to the "second messenger" nitric oxide. According to the Institute for Scientific Information, Sir Salvador was the UK's most cited scientist of the 1990's. When the knighthood is conferred later this year it will take place at a different Palace from the one he normally frequents; Salvador is married to Princess Maria-Esmeralda, the sister of the King of Belgium!