Joan Albanell is the director of the Cancer Programme, coordinator of the Molecular Cancer Therapeutics Research Group, and head of the Medical Oncology Service at Hospital del Mar in Barcelona. His extensive professional career includes being Professor of Oncology at Pompeu Fabra University, Associate Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, coordinator of the Scientific Committee of the Spanish Breast Cancer Research Group (GEICAM), and clinical coordinator of the Cancer Research Group at the Networking Biomedical Research Centre Consortium (CIBERONC).
Joan Albanell graduated from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1989 with an extraordinary award in medicine. He was a Medical Oncology resident in Vall d'Hebron Hospital from 1990 to 1993. He then spent two years (1995 and 1996) in the laboratory of Malcolm AS Moore at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he worked on translational research on the telomerase enzyme. He defended his doctoral thesis on this subject in 2001, at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He worked as a medical oncology consultant from 1997 to 2002 at Hospital de la Vall Hebron, and from 2002 to June 2005 at Hospital Clínic in Barcelona.
In June 2005, he joined the Medical Oncology Service of Hospital del Mar in Barcelona as chief of the service. Dr. Albanell's main field is breast cancer and his research involves translational studies using new biological agents/targets. He has participated in the design and development of several phase I clinical trials, with an important role in pharmacodynamics.
The focus of his research career has been the clinical study of new anti-cancer drugs and their mechanisms of action and resistance. He is the author of more than 120 peer-reviewed articles with over 9,000 citations. For years he has been conducting translational research on response markers and resistance mechanisms to new therapies for HER2-positive breast cancer. Into this research, he has recently he has incorporated knowledge on how immune system is involved in treatment effectiveness.
Juan Pablo Horcajada is the director of the Translational Clinical Research Programme at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute (Barcelona). He has been Head of the Infectious Diseases Department at Hospital del Mar (Barcelona) since 2013 and Coordinator of the Infection Control Program at the same institution since 2007. He leads the Infectious Pathology and Antimicrobials Research (IPAR) group at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute (HMRIB), has been an Associate Professor of Medicine at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) since 2022, and has served as Vice-Dean of the UPF Faculty of Medicine since 2023.
He obtained his medical degree from the University of the Basque Country (1990) and holds a PhD in Medicine (1997). He is a specialist in Internal Medicine (Hospital Donostia, 1995) and holds a Master's degree in AIDS and Infectious Diseases from the University of Barcelona (2001). He received specialist training in Infectious Diseases at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona (1997-2004) and joined Hospital del Mar in 2007, where he has promoted the consolidation of the infection control program and the creation of the Infectious Diseases Department and the IPAR research group at HMRIB. This is a consolidated research group, recognized by AGAUR and integrated into CIBERINFEC, with priority research lines in the epidemiology and treatment of infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria, as well as in antimicrobial pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. He has led 16 competitive research projects and has acted as local principal investigator in more than 50 antimicrobial clinical trials. The group participates in national and international research networks, including ECRAID, and in the REVERSE and RADAR projects (IMI/Horizon Europe).
As of January 2026, he has authored 375 publications indexed in PubMed, has an H-index of 68, and 19,314 citations in Scopus (January 2026). He serves as Associate Editor for two international scientific journals. In teaching, he has supervised 8 doctoral theses and is currently supervising 3 more, and he is director of three national courses on antimicrobial therapy and infection control.
In the institutional and management field, he coordinates the Catalonia Hospital Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (PROA) (VINCat/CatSalut), is a board member of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, and serves as the Spanish representative to the Union of European Medical Specialists (UEMS) for Infectious Diseases, as well as to the European Committee of Infection Control (EUCIC) of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID). He was a member of the Infectious Diseases Scientific Advisory Group of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) (2021-2023), President of the Catalan Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Catalan Government for COVID-19. His distinctions include the National Award of the Royal Academy of Doctors (1997) and the UPF Teaching Innovation Award (2016).
Montserrat Fitó is the Director of the Research Program in Epidemiology and Public Health and Coordinator of the Cardiovascular Risk and Nutrition Research Group (CARIN) of the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) and the Spanish network of excellence CIBER for the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBERobn). Likewise, Dr. Fitó is a member of the Permanent Board of the Catalan Center for Nutrition of the Institute of Catalan Studies (CCNIEC).
Her group, with researchers belonging to both CIBER networks, CIBERobn (Obesity and Nutrition) and CIBEResp (Epidemiology and Public Health), has focused on the investigation of biomarkers with predictive and prognostic value for chronic degenerative diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, both in Child, adult, and elderly population. Likewise, the team is focusing on the study of the mechanisms related to cardiovascular risk. Among the group's objectives is to advance in the innovation of therapeutic strategies, for which they have created collaborations with specialized centers of international excellence.
Dr. Fitó is a researcher and member of the Steering Committee of the PREDIMED and PREDIMEDPlus trials, in which she has assisted in several NIH studies. These studies represent the first large-scale randomized controlled trials with a lifestyle intervention to prevent cardiovascular disease worldwide. The scientific results of these trials have contributed to the updating of clinical guidelines related to the prevention of cardiovascular diseases (such as the clinical guidelines of the American Heart Association, among other European and national ones).
Mar Albà is the director of the Biomedical Informatics Research Programme (GRIB). She is an ICREA Research Professor and leads the Evolutionary Genomics Group at IMIM.
She obtained a PhD in Biological Sciences at Universitat de Barcelona in 1997. During 1998-1999 she was a postdoctoral researcher in the group of John Hancock at the MRC Clinical Research Centre (UK). Later she joined the group led by Paul Kellam at University College London to develop new computational tools to study herpesvirus gene evolution and function. Before joining IMIM, she was also a Ramón y Cajal scientist at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2002-2005). Mar Albà has taught bioinformatics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra for 20 years. She has directed 11 doctoral thesis and she is an author of over 100 publications. In 2021 she was awarded an European Research Council Advanced Grant (NovoGenePop, 2021-2026).
Mar Albà has an extensive experience in the development of computational tools for the analysis of biomedical data. Her research team uses high throughput sequencing methods to uncover the translation of small ORFs and to better understand the processes underlying the birth of new genes. The development of methods to analyze data from emerging RNA-seq technologies such as Nanopore RNA-seq is also an active line of research. The group is also studying how mutations in cancer result in alterations in the transcriptome and proteome, and how this impacts the neoantigen landscape and the response to treatment.
Pablo Villoslada, director of the Neurosciences Research Programme, studied medicine at the University of Santiago de Compostela (1990). He completed his specialization in neurology at Vall d'Hebron Hospital and earned his Ph.D. in Neuroimmunology (1996) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He conducted a postdoctoral fellowship in Neuroimmunology at the University of California. Furthermore, he worked as an Associate Professor at the University of Navarra (2001 to 2008) and later led the neuroimmunology group at Hospital Clínic - IDIBAPS (2009 to 2014). He returned to the United States in 2014, joining the faculty of the Department of Neurology at the University of California (2014 to 2017), after which he joined Genentech (Roche) as Director of Clinical Development in Neuroinflammation. Since 2019, he has been an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University and has also held the position of Adjunct Professor at Pompeu Fabra University since 2018. Currently, he serves as the Head of the Neurology Department at Hospital del Mar.
Pablo Villoslada has been actively engaged in neuroscience and translational research for over 25 years, contributing to the application of systems biology to neurological diseases, the development of new therapies or biomarkers for neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative conditions, and neuroimaging (brain MRI and OCT) for brain disorders. He has published over 200 articles in prestigious neurology journals such as Lancet Neurology, Ann Neurol, Neurology, Arch Neurol, and Brain, among others. Furthermore, he holds 15 patents related to biomarkers and novel therapies for brain diseases, the majority of which are actively licensed to biotechnology and medical technology companies.
He has played a pivotal role in research networks and consortia, notably as the coordinator and founder of the Spanish Network for Multiple Sclerosis (RETICS Red Española de Esclerosis Múltiple) from 2006 to 2014. He has also been a member of European consortia, including CompleDis (7FP), CombiMS (Horizon 2020, co-coordinator), Sys4MS (Horizon 2020, coordinator), UEPHA*MS (Horizon 2020), and MultipleMS (Horizon Europe). Additionally, he is a co-founder and current member of the scientific advisory board of the International MS Visual Consortium and a member of the International MS Genetic Consortium. He also serves on the scientific advisory boards of institutions such as the Achucarro Institute in Leioa, the Barcelona Beta Research Center (BBRC), and the Biomimetics Science Institute in Barcelona, as well as the GAEM Foundation in Barcelona. Finally, he is a member of the scientific advisory boards for biotechnology and medical technology companies, including QMENTA Inc (Boston, MA), Adhera Health Inc (Palo Alto, CA), CLight Inc (Berkeley, CA), Accure Therapeutics (Barcelona), and Attune Neurosciences (Maryland, MD). His outstanding career and contributions to neurological research have established him as a renowned expert in the field.
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