Sandra Villegas, Full Professor
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Affiliation(s):
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
ORCID URL:
Areas of Interest:
Alzheimer’s disease, immunotherapy, conformational diseases, aggregation, protein folding, protein structure, protein design, Biophysics
Biography & Research:
Sandra Villegas is a Full Professor of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Autonomous University of Barcelona) (UAB), where she obtained her PhD in Biochemistry in 1995 after working on Activation of pancreatic carboxypeptidases in the laboratory of Prof. F.X. Avilés. During her Ph.D., she stayed several months in Eli Lily and co. (Indianapolis, USA) working on protein processing and in the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Marseille, France) working on protein expression. She performed her post-Doc in the laboratory of Prof. Luis Serrano, at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-Heidelberg, Germany). She worked on protein folding, stability and design, and published several highly cited papers in the field. At her return in 1998, she re-incorporated to the laboratory of Prof. Avilés and got an Associate Professor position in 2002. In 2007, she founded her own research group with the aim of implementing her background in the protein misfolding field to several devastating conditions affecting humans, especially to AD, but also to PD, ataxias, systemic amyloidosis, and atherosclerosis.
