I graduated and earned my Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. During my thesis, I visited the laboratory of Dr. Mark P. Goldberg at Washington University in St. Louis (MO, USA) for three months. I defended my doctoral thesis in July 2003, obtaining the qualification of Excellent Cum Laude. From this period, I published 3 articles as first author in journals in the field of ischemia and neuroscience (Malagelada et al., Stroke 2004, Malagelada et al. Neurobiol of Dis., 2005 and Malagelada et al., Neurobiol of Dis., 2009) and three more papers as co-author.

In October 2003, I started my first postdoctoral stay in the group of Dr. Nikolaos Robakis at the Dpt. of Psychiatry from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City (USA). In June 2004 I began my second postdoctoral stay in the group of Dr. Lloyd A. Greene, at Columbia University in New York, studying the RTP801 / REDD1 protein in Parkinson's disease (PD). We found that RTP801 induced neuronal death in PD cell and animal models, sequentially inactivating mTOR (Malagelada et al., JNeurosci, 2006) and Akt (Malagelada et al., JNeurosci, 2008). The pharmacological blocking of the induction of RTP801 with rapamycin was protective in cellular and animal models of PD (Malagelada et al., JNeurosci, 2010). Furthermore, RTP801 turned out to have a crucial function in the development of the telencephalon (Malagelada et al., JNeurosci, 2011). In 2008, I got my first "faculty appointment" as an Associate Research Scientist in the same department at Columbia University. In June 2009 I was awarded a Ramón y Cajal contract from MINECO, and in April 2010 I joined the Pharmacology Unit of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Barcelona. In this department, I established my research group. In September 2015 I transferred my group to the Biochemistry Unit of the Dpt. of Biomedicine of the same faculty. In 2017, I won the competitive opening as an associate professor (profesora agregada) in the same department. I currently have a research project funded by MINECO (PID2020-119236RB-I00, 2020-2023) and another from the Michael J. Fox Foundation. I also have the participation of three pre-doctoral students: Genís Campoy-Campos (FI pre-doctoral fellow, thesis defense expected by June 2024), Almudena Chicote-González (MJFox Foundation predoctoral fellow, thesis defense expected by November 2024), and Pol Garcia-Segura (FPU fellow, expected thesis defense October 2026). From 2010 till now, we have been studying the contribution of RTP801/REDD1 to neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's, Huntington's and Alzheimer's disease. We also have been studying the molecular mechanisms of both sporadic and LRRK2-related parkinsonisms in collaboration with the Hospital Clínic neurologists. Hence as an independent group from 2010, here are our achievements:

a) We have awarded with 5 research projects from MINECO (SAF2010-21058, SAF2014-45888-R, SAF2014-57160-R, SAF2017-88812-R and PID2020-119236RB-I00), a European Marie Curie Reintegration project (PIRG08-GA-2010-276957), and two US projects of the MJ Fox Foundation plus a predoctoral fellowship extension. We are part of the CIBERNED group of Dr. Jordi Alberch and members of a consolidated research group SGR of the Generalitat de Catalunya coordinated by Dr. Esther Pérez-Navarro;

b) We have published 21 research articles.

c) We have 1 article under review and two more papers under preparation, generated with the latest PID2020-119236RB-I00 project.

d) I have directed 8 doctoral theses of which, 5 have been defended with Excellent Cum Laude and the other three are in progress, 8 final degree projects, and 7 master's degrees in Neuroscience.

d) We have made two patent applications: the first was successfully transferred to AB Biotics and the second was abandoned.