Dr. Iban Ubarretxena was originally a chemist from Basque Country University but later switched to molecular biology. He obtained his PhD in the center for biomembranes and lipid enzymology (CBLE) at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. Under the supervision of Dr. Niek Dekker, he worked on the biochemical and structural characterization of the enzyme outer membrane phospholipase A. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Don Engelman at Yale University, where he developed an interest in the biophysics of biological membranes. After he moved on as an EMBO postdoctoral fellow to the MRC-LMB in Cambridge to work on the structure determination of multidrug transporters using high-resolution electron microscopy in the laboratory of Richard Henderson. He is currently an assistant professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine working on the molecular mechanisms leading to neurodegenerative diseases, with a focus on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. He is an expert in the study of membrane proteins and in the application of electron microscopy to protein structure determination. He is a member of several scientific societies and recipient of a NSF CAREER award.