María Jesús Bullido Gómez-Heras, Professor of Molecular Biology at the Madrid Autonomous University; Group leader in the CBMSO (CSIC-UAM) and CIBERNED (ISCIII); Member of the Biomedical Research Institute IdiPaz. PhD in Chemistry (UAM, 1988). After working on immune responses to viruses, I moved to the study of molecular and genetic bases of Alzheimer's disease. My team uses functional genomics analysis of cell models, followed by validation using biomarkers in patients, to study Alzheimer's pathogenesis. We hypothesized that viral infections are part of Alzheimer's pathogenesis and are among the first groups to report that HSV-1 and HSV-2 induce neurodegeneration markers characteristic of AD and impair the lysosomal system's functionality. We have also found several AD genetic risk factors related to HSV-1, which reinforces our interest in this line of research. We are currently committed to reinforcing the translational value of our models, including the use of complex cellular models such as ReNcellVM.