I did my PhD at the CICbioGUNE and the University of the Basque Country to uncover the mechanism underlying the degradation of Necrotic, a Serine protease inhibitor that is essential for the regulation of the innate immune response via the Toll signaling pathway. For my PostDoc I joined the Laboratory of Elisabeth Knust at the Max Plank Institute for Genetics and Cell Biology in Dresden (Germany) and uncovered a transsynaptic protein complex that is required to prevent photoreceptors degeneration in disease such as Retinitis Pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration. To further improve my knowledge about mechanism of neurodegenerative disease and synaptic function I joined the Laboratory of Patrik Verstreken at the VIB/KU Leuven in Belgium. At the VIB/KU Leuven I started a new research line about the function of synaptic proteins in autophagy. Combining in vitro modelling systems, Drosophila genetics and human stem cells I found that mutation in these proteins alter autophagy and cause Parkinson disease.

Trough an international call for group leaders at the Neurocampus Bordeaux (France) and the IDEX Chair, an excellence program of the University Bordeaux, I started by own lab at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease in October 2018. Together with my research team I discovered how dysfunction of protein quality control and cell-cell communication leads to neurodegeneration.

Now I am a Ikerbasque researcher at ACHUCARRO where I lead the Laboratory of Molecular Mechanisms of Neurobiology in Health and Disease. The aim of my lab is to understand the role of autophagy and cell-cell communication in neurotransmission, neuronal circuits, behavior, and its implications in neurodegenerative disease.