Dr. Gema Ruiz-Hurtado is the Head of the Cardiorenal Translational Laboratory, the Institute of Research i+12, the Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre. She graduated in Biochemistry in 2002 from the Chemistry Faculty at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). She obtained her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Human Therapeutics in 2008 at the Medicine Faculty at UCM. From 2008 to 2011, she completed a postdoctoral stay at the Institute de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM) in Montpellier and Paris. She is a member of the International Society of Hypertension (ISH), the Spanish Society of Hypertension (SEH), the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC) and the Spanish Society of Nephrology (SEN), the National Association of Hospital Researchers (ANIH), and the Biophysical Society. During the last 10 years, her research activities have been focused on the study of new molecular targets and biomarkers involved in hypertension, cardiovascular and renal disease. She has also focused on the study of the functional alterations at the cellular and intracellular levels associated with the presence of cardiac disease. She has strong experience in the difficult analysis of calcium handling at the intracardiomyocyte level using confocal microscopy.