Fitxa persona

He obtained his B.Sc. in Pharmacy in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Pharmacy in 1991 from the University of Valencia. He completed his doctoral research at the Instituto de Investigaciones Citológicas (Valencia). He subsequently carried out a five-year postdoctoral stay in the laboratory of Dr. Jean Gruenberg, first at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) (1991–1993) and later at the University of Geneva (1993–1996), where he held a teaching and research position as Maître Assistant. He rejoined the University of Valencia in 1996. Associate Professor (1998-2012) and Full Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology since 2012.

He leads the Protein Trafficking research group at the University of Valencia, whose research focuses on intracellular protein trafficking in plant cells, with particular emphasis on bidirectional protein transport between the endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi apparatus mediated by COPI (Coat Protein I)- and COPII-coated vesicles.

His research achievements include six nationally recognized research assessment periods ("sexenios"), supervision of 11 Ph.D. theses, and leadership as Principal Investigator of 15 competitive research projects, including nine funded under the Spanish National R&D Plan. He has published 45 Q1 journal articles and has received more than 4,000 citations according to the Web of Science, averaging over 60 citations per publication. Four of his publications were selected and evaluated by Faculty of 1000 Biology. One article was included among the Most Downloaded Articles in the journal Traffic (2013). Another article published in The Plant Cell ranks within the top 1% of highly cited papers in the field of Plant and Animal Sciences for its publication year, according to the Web of Science, and has received twelve times the average number of citations for comparable publications, according to Dimensions.

He was awarded the Extraordinary Doctoral Award and the García Blanco Research Medal, presented jointly by the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry of the University of Valencia and the Príncipe Felipe Research Center in recognition of outstanding scientific contributions by early-career researchers in the fields of Science and Biomedicine.