On Wednesday 15 June Dr Martí Aldea Malo became full Professor of Biology of UIC Barcelona, having received the highest academic recognition at university level to add to his previously achieved academic and research honours.

The event, which took place in the Auditorio of the Sant Cugat Campus, brought together researchers, health professionals and students from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr Javier Jiménez Jiménez, deputy director of the Department of Basic Sciences, was responsible for conferring the honours, and he highlighted in particular Dr Aldea Malo’s career in research and his passion for teaching. Afterwards the new professor gave the keynote inaugural speech titled “Ordered chaos in molecular networks”.

After obtaining a PhD in Biological Sciences from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Dr Martí Aldea Malo then worked with Dr Miguel Vicente at the Centre for Biological Research (CSIC) and with Dr Sidney Kushner at the University of Georgia (USA), focusing his research on mechanisms that coordinate cell growth and division in Escherichia coli. Upon his return from the United States, he joined the Department of Basic Medical Sciences of the University of Lleida, where he led the Eukaryotic Cell Cycle Group as a lecturer in the area of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Currently, Dr Aldea Malo is a researcher at the Institute of Molecular Biology of Barcelona (IBMB-CSIC), where he has developed different research projects that have led him to postulate a molecular theory for the control of cell size. The most recent work done by Dr Aldea Malo and his research group has resulted in the discovery of a link between protein aggregation and entry into the cell cycle and its causal role in the loss of proliferative capacity that occurs during cellular ageing.