Francisca Bronfman is a professor of cell biology and neuroscience at the Andres Bello University (UNAB) and has a Ph.D. in Medical Sciences from the Catholic University of Louvain (KUL). In March 2003, after a postdoc at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, she started as an assistant professor at the Physiology Department of the Catholic University (UC). She moved to the Institute of Biomedical Science (ICB) from UNAB as a full professor in May 2019. Her lab is interested in the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate neuronal survival and plasticity in the nervous system. Her lab studies the cellular basis of neurotrophin action in neurons. More recently, her lab has focused on studying functional lipids derived from macroalgae for their use as nutraceuticals and/or functional food to prevent or treat neuronal and metabolic dysfunction.