Cristina Malagelada, PhD, graduated in biochemistry in 1998 from the the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), where she also earned her PhD in biochemistry in 2003. She studied the molecular mechanisms associated with cell death in models of cerebral ischemia. In 2003 she became a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Nikolaos Robakis at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. In 2004 she joined the laboratory of Professor Lloyd A. Greene at Columbia University in New York, where she started her investigations in Parkinson’s disease. In 2010 she was awarded with a Ramón y Cajal tenure track contract from the Spanish Ministry of Economy to start her own laboratory in the University of Barcelona. Currently, her team is investigating the role of the mTOR pathway in neuron death and neurodegeneration.