I am ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, where I'm the head of the Complex Systems Lab. I am also External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute (New Mexico, USA) and external faculty of the Center for Evolution and Cancer at UCSF. I am also member of the editorial board of several international journals. I obtained my degrees in Physics and Biology at the University of Barcelona and received my PhD in Physics at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. I have been awarded with grants of the James McDonnell Foundation, the Botín Foundation and an ERC Advanced Grant.

Research interests

One of my main research interests is understanding the origins of complexity and its decay in biological systems and their engineered counterparts. How cells, genetic codes, symbiosis, multicellularity, computation, cooperation, neural systems, language, intelligence or consciousness emerge are some of the key problems that I would like to understand. To this goal, my Lab develops both theoretical and experimental research, including an ambitious program on synthetic biology. The later area includes an exploration of synthetic multicellular systems, synthetic swarm intelligence and strategies to redesign existing ecosystems to fight agains climate change and its impacts.