Luis Menéndez-Arias studied biology at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he received his Ph.D. in 1989. Between 1990 and 1994, he was trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center (Frederick, Maryland, USA), where he conducted studies on the biochemical properties of retroviral proteases and their implications in virus maturation and antiviral therapy. Currently, he is a Research Professor of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council) and Group Leader at the Centro de Biología Molecular “Severo Ochoa” in Madrid, where he has been working since 1994. His research is mainly devoted to understanding structure-activity relationships in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) reverse transcriptase (RT), elucidating mechanisms of HIV resistance to antiretroviral drugs, and understanding HIV replication fitness.