María A. Balboa PhD, MS, BS

María A. Balboa obtained her B.S. in Biology, M.S. in Biochemistry and Ph.D. in Immunology from the Autónoma University of Madrid, Spain in 1984, 1986 and 1992 respectively. To receive training in lipid signaling she moved to U.S.A. where she worked as a Posdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology in the University of California at San Diego under the supervision of Prof. Paul Insel. In 1995 she moved to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the same university to work under the supervision of Prof. Edward Dennis, and remained there for 5 years. She returned to Spain in 2000 as a Spanish Reserach Council's Assistant Professor at the University of Valladolid School of Medicine. She is currently Full Professor at this institution. Her work is focused on how innate immune cells respond to stimuli by changing their lipid composition. Her recent work has revealed a relationship between the regulation of lipid metabolism and the harmfulness of the immune response.