Mikel Valle

Academic, research and entrepreneurial landmarks Higher education:

• Degree in Biology from the University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (1992).
• Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Autonomous University of Madrid (1998).
• Doctoral dissertation at the National Biotechnology Centre, CNB-CSIC (Madrid).

‘From 1999 to 2003, I was Associate Researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute of Wadsworth Center, New York Department of Health (Albany, NY, USA). In 2004, I was appointed Scientist at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), where I stayed until 2006, when I was called to work as the Head of the Electron Microscope Lab (Lab 3) at the Structural Biology unit of CIC bioGUNE (Bizkaia Science and Technology Park). ’Currently, I am the head of a research team with several projects centred on the structure-function relation of the p53 tumour suppressor and different aspects of the functioning of bacterial ribosome. ’My research has been oriented to studying the 3D structure of biological macromolecules using the transmission electron microscope. I have published articles in international journals like Science, Nature and Cell. ’A small revolution is happening in Euskadi in the scientific sphere, and I wanted to be part of it.’