Mara Dierssen Email & Phone Number

Dr Dierssen is the head of one of the groups of the Systems Biology program. The overall goal of Dr Dierssen research is to understand the role of putative candidate genes for human complex genetic diseases on brain cognitive systems, mainly using genetically modified mouse models. Overall she has almost 180 publications, with major research papers in the upper 10% impact factor journals on her field, in international peer reviewed journals, 3 books and 22 book chapters. She has led research projects, funded by competitive calls under national and European schemes (FP7, Foundation Jerome Lejeune, Spanish R&D projects, Fundació La Marató, H2020, JPND etc), most of which as PI. Dr Dierssen is evaluator of different Scientific Committees and Boards such as National Evaluation Agency, Spanish Ministry of Education, ERC or Panel Expert for EU. She is past president of the International Behavioral and Neural Genetics Society, she has acted as executive committee member, vice-President and president of the Spanish Society of Neuroscience and has been founding member and president of the Trisomy 21 Research Society. She is also part of Editorial Boards (Genes Brain and Behavior, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, Down Syndrome Research and Practice, Amino Acids, Frontiers in Genetics and BMC). She is a world expert in the field of intellectual disability and pharmacology and has received several recognitions for her work including National Award for Science Thinking, Ramón Trias Fargas, Jaime Blanco or Sisley-Lejeune awards. Her laboratory is fully equipped and experienced with molecular biology techniques and brain morphology analysis and high expertise in the phenotyping of mouse models with more than 56 established protocols running in the laboratory. Dr Dierssen is also very active in science communication and is member of the DANA Allianze for the brain, the Academia Europaea, Honorary Member and Silver Medal of the College of Medicine, and Distinguished Alumni of the University of Cantabria, among other recognitions.