Joaquín Arribas completed his undergraduate studies in biochemistry at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 1987. At the same university he subsequently worked on the regulation of the catalytic activities of the proteasome and received his PhD in Biology in 1991. Sponsored by a fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, he joined the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York (USA), as a Postdoctoral Fellow to work with J. Massagué (1992-1996) on the proteolytic processing of transmembrane growth factors. In 1997 he joined the oncology department at Hospital Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona as a Staff Scientist, since then he has lead the research group on Growth Factors. Since 2010 he has served as Director of VHIO´s Preclinical Research Program. His research has been recognized through an EMBO Young Investigator Programme (YIP) Award and the Beckman Coulter Award for the Best Young Spanish Investigator in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.