Dr. Isabel Varela-Nieto graduated and earned her doctorate in Chemistry, Biochemistry Section, at the University Complutense of Madrid (Spain). She has been a visiting guest scientist at the Medical Schools of Uppsala (FEBS Fellow, Sweden) and San Diego (MEC Sabbatical, USA). She is Professor of Research at the CSIC and group leader at the CIBER of rare diseases (CIBERER, ISCIII) in Madrid. From the early 1990s she has been studying hearing neurobiology and IGF-1 actions. She was the first Chair of the SEBBM Science for Society working group with which she actively collaborates, and member of the FEBS Network working group. She is currently the president of the SEBBM, a member of the FEBS Science and Society Committee and of the ISC Finances Committee.
A series of coincidences brought about to my young post-doc self a revelation: my ideal career should combine editorial work and science communication. While working as an Editor on FEBS Press and, before that, on Nature Reviews journals, I have immensely enjoyed communicating with Life Science Researchers — be it on past, current and emerging topics in biological research, or on the future of Science Policy and Publishing.