Isabelle Vernos obtained a PhD in Biology from the University Autonoma of Madrid in 1989. As a postdoc she moved to Cambridge (UK) and then to EMBL (Heidelberg) in 1992, becoming staff scientist in1996. In 1999 and 2005 respectively, she obtained competitive positions as junior and senior scientist of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC). In 2001, she established her first independent research group as team leader at EMBL. In 2005, she obtained an ICREA Research Professor position and moved to the CRG in Barcelona as senior researcher. She has published more than 85 research papers and reviews in high impact international journals. She is EMBO member since 2005. In 2011 she integrated the ERC Scientific Council and since 2013 she chairs its Gender Balance working group.  From 2012 to 2015, she was a member of the Advisory Board for Science, Technology and Innovation for the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity.

Research interests

Life depends on the ability of cells to divide while maintaining their genomic integrity. Cell division is therefore a critical process and yet involves the full reversible reorganization of the intra-cellular components. We are currently trying to understand the mechanism and regulatory signalling pathways involved in the transient formation of the mitotic spindle, the microtubule based molecular machine that segregates the chromosomes during cell division.