Fernando Gonzalez Candelas, PhD (University of Valencia, 1987) is Professor of Genetics at the University of Valencia since 2006 and head of the “Evolution and Health” Research Unit at the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology UV-CSIC (I2SysBio) at the same university. In addition, he has a joint appointment at the FISABIO-Public Health through the joint research unit “Infection and Public Health” with the University of Valencia and at the CIBERESP (Centre for Networked Research on Biomedicine – Public Health and Epidemiology).
    My main research interests are in population and evolutionary genetics, molecular and evolutionary epidemiology, molecular systematics and genomics, bioinformatics and conservation biology. I am currently working on the molecular evolutionary epidemiology of different pathogens, mainly RNA viruses, such as hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and bacteria, such as Legionella pneumophila, Treponema pallidum, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Our basic approach is the analysis of nucleotide sequence variability at different levels, from intrapatient to world-wide samples, and from particular genes to complete genomes, depending on the specific goals of the different projects. Previously I have studied the population and evolutionary biology of Mediterranean endemic Limonium (Plumbaginaceae) species, by using an array of genetic markers (RAPDs, AFLPs, microsatellites, isozymes) and including the analysis of quantitative traits. I have published more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific papers and written two books.

He studied Biology and Philosophy simultaneously at the University of Valencia, obtaining his Ph.D. in Biology in 1983 and Philosophy (Extraordinary Award) in 1988. He did his postdoctoral stay in 1985-1986 with a Fulbright grant at the University of California at Davis (USA). He had been visiting professor at the University of California at Irvine (USA) in 1988 and 1994, and in 2019 professor on a sabbatical stay with a Fulbright grant at Harvard University. In 1986 he created the Evolutionary Genetics group in the Dept. of Genetics at the University of Valencia, where he has been a professor since 1993. He was the director of this Dept. from 1995 to 1998. He has been the promoter of the Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology of the University of Valencia and its director from its creation in 1998 until 2010. He has also been a promoter of the Astrobiology Center (INTA-CSIC) and the Centro Superior de Investigación en Salud Pública de la Conselleria de Sanidad del Gobierno Valenciano (CSISP), of which he was its director in 2012. The CSISP was integrated into the Valencian Foundation for Promoting Health and Biomedical Research of the Valencian Community, FISABIO. He was the FISABIO-Public Health division's scientific director from 2013 until July 2014. Since August 2014, he has directed, within FISABIO, the FISABIO Chair for the Promotion of Biomedical Research, an Institutional Chair of the University of Valencia.

He is the author of about 600 publications, including scientific articles, reviews, book chapters, and books on Genetics, Evolution, and Philosophy (20,700 citations, h-index of 74). He has participated in several patents and created a spin-off company. Experimental evolution of viruses and genomics and metagenomics of bacteria and microbial communities represent the research areas where he has made the most significant scientific contributions. He introduced Genomics in Spain, and his group sequenced the first genome of a bacterium, entirely carried out in Spain. He has done extensive work in disseminating and reflecting on science and has published several books on evolutionary theory and the scope of evolutionary thought. He currently focuses his research on symbiosis, mainly studying the human microbiome and other organisms from an evolutionary, systems biology, and synthetic biology perspective. He has supervised 35 doctoral theses, and many national and foreign scientists have been trained in his research group. He has received competitive funding from regional, national, European, and international agencies and has been the principal investigator of national, European, and international projects.

He has given lectures and courses in European countries, Latin America, the United States, and Asia. He has formed or is a member of commissions of research evaluation agencies in Spain and its autonomous communities, different European and Latin American countries, and the European Union.

He is a member of several scientific societies, founder of the European Society of Evolutionary Biology, the Spanish Society of Virology, and the Spanish Society of Evolutionary Biology, of which he has been its president. He is editor-in-chief, associate editor, or editorial board member of several scientific and philosophical journals.

He has received the following distinctions: the City of Barcelona Award for Scientific Research (1996), "Fellow" of the "American Association for the Advance of Science" (1998), the Diario Médico Award (2006), Diploma of the President of the Valencian Government for Excellence in Biomedical Research (2010), National Genetics Award (2012), Lilly Award in Preclinical Biomedical Research (2013), Mexico Award for Science and Technology (2015), Dr. Honoris Causa by the Menéndez Pelayo International University (2016), Advisor to the Gadea Foundation (2017), Maestro Andrés Laguna Award (2019), Alberto Sols Award for Research in Health Sciences (2022).