Alfonso Martinez-Arias - Curriculum Vitae#

Education

• June 1983 PhD from the Dpt. of Biophysics and Theoretical Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago (USA)
  
• July 1977 “Licenciado en Ciencias Biologicas”. Universidad Complutense. Madrid (Spain)

Positions

• Since February 2021, ICREA Research Professor, Systems Bioengineering program Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Spain)
  
• October 2003 - January 2021, Professor of Developmental Mechanics. Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge
  
• January 2010 - March 2011, Director of the Center for the Physics of Medicine of the University of Cambridge
  
• October 2002 - October 2003, Lecturer in Genetics at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge (UK) under a Wellcome Trust University Award Scheme
  
• 1987 - 2002 Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow in the Biomedical Sciences in the Department of Zoology and, from July 2000 in the Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge (UK)
  
• August 1986 - August 1987, Staff of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge (UK)
  
• 1983 - 1986, postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr.P. Lawrence, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge (UK).
  
• 1979 - 1983, PhD work on the use of ß-galactosidase fusions to study gene expression in yeast, under the supervision of Dr. M. Casadaban. University of Chicago, Chicago (USA)
  
• 1976 - 1979, research studentship towards a “tesina” in the Dpt. Biochemistry under the supervision of A. Ribera, Universidad Complutense, Madrid (Spain)

Main awards

• 2012 Waddington Medal of the British Society of Developmental Biology
  
• 2007 Elected member of EMBO
  
• 2003 Personal Chair (Professorship), University of Cambridge, Cambridge (UK)
  
• 2019 Advanced European Research Council Grant Award on “The mammaliam body plan blueprint, an in vitro approach”
  
• 2010 Human Science Frontier Grant (PI) on “Information processing by signal transduction and gene regulatory networks in mammalian development”
  
• 2009 Advanced European Research Council Grant Award on “Molecular origins and function of dynamic heterogeneities in mouse ES cells and pre-implantation embryos”
  
• 1987-2002 Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship, held at the University of Cambridge
  
• 1983-1986, Long term EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge (UK)
  
• 1978-1979 Fullbright Scholarship to attend the University of Chicago, Chicago (USA)

Currently in two advisory boards

• 2019 Advisory Board of The Hubrecht Institute, Utrecht (the Netherlands)
  
• 2019 Advisory Board of Centro Andaluz de Biologia del Desarrollo, Sevilla (Spain)

Two patents on and over 180 peer reviewed publications.

Two text books: Molecular Principles of animal development (OUP 2002) and Principles of Development (7t edition OUP, 2025) as well as a popular Science book; The Master Builder (Basic Books, 2023).

Multiple keynote lectures.

Significant contributions to cell and developmental biology with a special mention on the discovery of ‘gastruloids” a stem cell based model of early mammalian development that has opened up important avenues to study the early stages of human development.