Short biography
I graduated in Pharmacy in the University of Barcelona in 1995 and received the PhD from the same university in 2000. The same year, I joined as a post-doctoral scientist the laboratory of HR Kaback at the University of California, Los Angeles (USA). In July 2004, I started my second post-doc in the laboratory of Dr. Joao Morais-Cabral (Yale University (USA)). In November 2006 I moved to the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Barcelona where I work as ICREA researcher. Research interests
Membrane transport proteins regulate the selective transport of different molecules across biological membranes required for the normal activity of the cell. Genetical defects that affect either the expression yield and/or the functionality of many of these proteins are the direct cause of important pathologies. The purpose of my research is to understand at the molecular level how these proteins perform their work. Questions like how a transporter recognizes and, subsequently translocates its substrate are best addressed after determining their three dimensional structure by X-ray crystallography. These structures combined with functional experiments help us to understand the relations between structure and activity of this class of proteins and accelerate the discovery of therapeutic agents against them. Key words
amino acids, membrane transport proteins, X-ray crystallography