Professor and researcher at the Department of Psychobiology (University of Valencia) since

1994 (6 quinquennia and 5 sexennia), full professor from 2017. As teacher, I have given degree and master courses, I have published two books and several chapters of book. I have also performed management activities in the University. As researcher, I am the leader of the Research Unit “Neurobehavioural mechanisms and endophenotypes of addictive behaviour”.

Our research is focus in behavioral and pharmacological experiments on animal models. We use a wide variety of learning, memory and brain disorders paradigms, especially animal models of addictive behavior. I have participated as active researcher in more than 28 research

projects financed by national and local institutions. I have supervised 4 doctoral thesis, 4

degree thesis, 3 research works and 16 final master works. Now, I am supervising one

doctoral thesis. I have performed research periods in other national and international

Universities and Research Centers and I have colaborated with prestigious researchers. I

have published 130 JCR papers and several book chapters related with my research.

My main scientific contributions to the psychobiology of drug addiction are: 1. To extend the

conditioned place preference (CPP) procedure to study the phenomenon of relapse to drug

use after extinction; 2. To demonstrate the role of several neurotransmitter systems in the

behavioral effects of different drugs of abuse (such as cocaine, alcohol, cannabinoids and

MDMA); 3. To verify the long-term effects of adolescent drug exposure and poly-drug

consumption; 4. To demonstrate the influence of individual (age, sex, novelty-seeking) and

environmental (social stress) variables on the vulnerability to the rewarding effects of

different drugs of abuse; 5. To demonstrate the protective effects of several environmental

manipulations on the response to drugs of abuse; 6. To clarify the mechanisms underlying

(neurotransmitter systems, neuroinflammation, epigenetic processes, etc.) to the influence of

environmental variables of risk and protection to the susceptibility to develop drug addiction

in animal models.

The mid-long term scientific-technic objectives of my research line are: 1. To study the

neurobehavioral mechanisms of resilience to the negative effects of social stress on the

response to drugs of abuse, 2. To identify behavioral and neurochemical biomarkers of

resilience or vulnerability to drug abuse, 3. To perform environmental and pharmacologic

manipulations that increased the resilience to the effects of social stress on the rewarding

properties of drugs of abuse; 4. To evaluate the underlying mechanism to the resilience

(neurotransmitter systems, neuroinflammation, epigenetics, microbiota, etc.) 5. To evaluate

the long-term behavioral consequences of several environmental manipulations on

adolescence (including diet exposure and drug consumption) and to puzzle out the

underlying mechanism of action. The inclusion and consideration of the variable sex is

essential in all of these projects. The achievement of these objectives will contribute without

any doubt to identify new therapeutic targets for the treatment of drug addiction and to the

development of strategies to prevent this disorder.

Ángeles Álvarez Ribelles is a Full Professor of Pharmacology at the Universitat de València (UV) since 2023.

She graduated in Pharmacy (1997) and completed a PhD in Pharmacy (2002) at the UV. Her doctoral thesis “Proinflammatory action of Angiotensin II”, was awarded the UV’s Year’s Best Thesis Prize. On completing her PhD, Angeles began her postdoctoral training in the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) in 2003, participating in a project awarded the IV Salvat Laboratories Prize for the best health sciences research project by the Salvat Inquifarma Foundation. She continued her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School - the fifth best university in the world - studying the spatial and temporal location of integrins during the process of leukocyte migration. Both research stays were financed by scholarships obtained from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, respectively.

In 2006, she joined the Department of Pharmacology at the UV as a Researcher sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science’s Ramon y Cajal Program. She has been a member of CIBERehd (CB06/04/0071), a national network of research groups investigating digestive and hepatic diseases, since its foundation in 2007, and is a member of a PROMETEO research group of excellence funded by the regional government’s PROMETEO program. In recent years her research has focused on the study of the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the vascular toxicity induced by antiretroviral therapy. 

She has been principal investigator of 14 publicly funded research projects, 5 of them within the Spanish central government’s “Plan Nacional” research program (SAF2007, 60021, SAF2010-16030, SAF2015-67678-R, RTI2018-094436-B-I00, PID2022-137678OB-I00). In addition, she has received 9 grants from the Valencian regional government and CIBERehd, amongst other institutions. She has also led, as principal investigator, 5 translational studies about antiretroviral drugs in collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry. She possesses 4 research sexennials (2000-2005, 2006-2011, 2012-2017, 2018-2023) and 1 transfer of scientific knowledge sexennial (2013-2018). The results obtained by the group led by Dr. Alvarez have been published in specialist journals in the fields of Pharmacology – such as British Journal of Pharmacology - and of Infectious Diseases - such as AIDS, Journal of Infectious Diseases and Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, most of which are in the first decile of their category.
To date, Dr. Alvarez has published 56 original articles (h index=26, total number of citations= 2.415 on 01/09/2025) in international journals with a high impact factor, such as Circulation, Circulation Research, Blood and British Journal of Pharmacology, of which 49 are in the first quartile and 20 are in the first decile of their specialist field, having a relevant position in 25. In addition, she has presented more than 100 communications in congresses. She has directed 8 doctoral theses, 12 master’s theses and 28 undergraduate dissertations. She has supported the successful application of 5 pre-doctoral research contracts funded by calls of the regional or central governments and 1 Ramón y Cajal researcher contract.

[Biography, english version]

Associate Professor since 2004. Research interests: development, adaptation and validation of assessment instruments, structural equation modelling, alcohol consumption in adolescents, evaluation of selective prevention programs in alcohol consumption