Professor (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Dept. - UB), CIBERDEM ISCIII
Antonio Zorzano is Full Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Barcelona, Principal investigator at CIBERDEM, and Director of the Laboratory of Complex Metabolic Diseases and Mitochondria at the IRB Barcelona. Professor Zorzano received his PhD in Biology at the University of Barcelona, and did postdoctoral studies with Emilio Herrera (Hospital Ramon y Cajal, Madrid), Neil Ruderman (Boston University Medical Center), and Paul Pilch (Boston University Medical School). He was Visiting Professor at Boston University Medical School.
Boehringer Award from the Spanish Biochemical Society. Young Investigator Lilly Award of the Spanish Society of Diabetes. Research Award, Autonomous Government of Catalonia. UB Award to Special Dedication to Research. Alberto Sols Senior Investigator Award for Basic Sciences of the Spanish Society of Diabetes. ICREA Academia Awards (2013 and 2019).
He has supervised 47 Ph.D. theses, and has coordinated international consortia funded by different European agencies. He is co-inventor of 23 patents, and has published over 370 scientific articles (more than 48,000 citations), with key discoveries published in leading journals, and an h- index of 101 (Google Scholar). He has been founder of biotechnological companies in Spain and in UK.
Professor Zorzano’s research focuses on the regulation of metabolism and its interplay with insulin resistance, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and liver disease. His current interest links metabolism with mitochondrial dynamics, mitochondrial function, autophagy, and mitochondrial stress. A global goal of his group is to identify and validate molecular targets that permit the prevention or treatment of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, obesity or chronic liver diseases by using cell- based systems, genetically modified mice, and translational approaches.