Iria Medraño-Fernández

Senior Investigator

Iria Medraño-Fernández is Senior Investigator at and subdirector of the Department of Neurosciences and Biomedical Sciences of the University Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) where she has been recently awarded with a Chair of Excellence position 2025. In 2012, she earned her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid (UCM). Subsequently, she relocated to Milan to deepen her expertise in signal transduction by focusing on peroxiporin-controlled signalling pathways. In 2020, she returned to Spain after being granted with the prestigious Beatriz Galindo Excellence contract, framed in a strategy of the Spanish Government to facilitate the return of scientific talents working abroad. Since then, she has led the ‘Redox Signalling in Regenerative Medicine’ lab inserted in the Tissue Engineering in Regenerative Medicine (TERMEG) UC3M unit. Her primary research interest lies in uncovering how cells maintain redoxtasis to achieve desired outcomes, particularly during skin regeneration, applying a combination of molecular biology, biophysics, and biochemistry alongside cutting-edge techniques in tissue engineering. Due to the wide dissemination and international scope of her work, Iria is a member of the Spanish Society of Immunology (Spain), the Royal Society of Biochemistry (UK), the Society of Free Radical Research (European section) and the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine (USA), as well as an expert reviewer for the Spanish State Research Agency.
As an educator, Iria holds the position of Lecturer in the courses “Introduction to Microbiology and Immunology”, "Lab Techniques" and "Omícs and Bioinformatics" within the BSc in Neurosciences program at the UC3M. Previously, she has been Lecturer in the courses "Biophysics I: Molecular, Cell, and Tissue Physical Biology"of the BSc in Physics Engineering program and "Cellular and Molecular Biology" and “Introduction to Bioengineering” courses of the BSc in Biomedical Engineering program at the same university. While being based at other institutions, she also taught at the BSc in Nutrition, BSc in Biochemistry, and BSc in Medicine programs at the UCM (Spain), as well as at the International Medical Doctor program at the Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele (Milan, Italy). Beyond the classroom, Iria is a member of various strategic and academic committees at UC3M, including the Biomedical Science and Technology PhD Committee, the BSc in Neurosciences Academic Committee, and the Biosafety and Ethics Committee.