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 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, myelinopathies and IGF-1 actions. She is currently the president of the Spanish Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Society (SEBBM) and a member of the Spanish ministerial commission for ISC. As SEBBM president represents Spain in FEBS and IUBMB.