The Franco-Spanish Prize 2010 was awarded to Carmen Nájera, Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Alicante, Spain, for her original work in synthetic chemistry and for her collaborations with organic chemists in France. The prize is awarded every other year by the Société Chimique de France (SCF).

Carmen Nájera obtained a Masters degree in Chemistry in 1977 in Zaragoza, and in 1979 she obtained a doctorate degree from the University of Oviedo. Starting as an Assistant Professor in Oviedo in 1982, and after several stays at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, University of Oxford, UK, Harvard University, USA, and the University of Uppsala, Sweden, she was appointed Associate Professor in Alicante in 1988 and then full Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1993. She is currently the Head of the Organic Chemistry Department, University of Alicante, and is co-founder of the spin-off company Medalchemy.

Her research is focused on synthetic organic chemistry, including the chemistry of sulfones, α-amino acids, peptide coupling reagents, palladium- and gold-catalyzed reactions, asymmetric metal catalysis, and asymmetric organocatalysis. She is the author of 250 publications, including 35 reviews and 17 book chapters, and of 4 patents. Carmen Nájera is an editorial board member of the European Journal of Organic Chemistry.
In 2006, she was awarded the Rosalind Franklin lectureship of the RSC, and in the same year, was the recipient of the Janssen-Cilag Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry prize. She was a visiting professor at the University of Arizona, USA (1991), Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina (1998), Université de Strasbourg, France (2002), and Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris, Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI), France (2006). 

• Carmen Nájera, Institute of Organic Synthesis, University of Alicante, Spain