Javier Martínez-Picado is ICREA Research Professor at the irsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute in Barcelona, an institution that works to advance clinical research and translate results into patients care. He is also associate professor at the Univ of Vic. He received his PhD from the Univ of Barcelona where he subsequently became associate professor lecturing on different microbiology-related subjects. In 1996, he joined the Massachusetts General Hospital as postdoctoral fellow of the Harvard Medical School, where he engaged in AIDS research. In 2000, he obtained a position as biomedical researcher of the Spanish Health Department appointed to the Hosp Germans Trias in Badalona. In 2006 he obtained his current ICREA position. Dr. Martínez-Picado serves on different government, academic and industry advisory boards and has published extensively on virology and immunology subjects, mainly related to HIV pathogenesis, in international journals.

Research interests

The research of our group focuses on characterizing the immune-virological mechanisms of viral pathogenesis in human diseases, including HIV-1, Ebola virus, Arenaviruses, and more recently SARS-CoV-2. Our program has a translational character with the goal of investigating potential new viral therapeutic strategies, especially in the HIV/AIDS field, through both basic and applied research. We closely collaborate with other research groups within irsiCaixa, as well as with national and international biomedical institutes. Our programme focuses on three priority areas in the HIV research: 1) HIV cure, 2) Viral pathogenesis mediated by dendritic cells, 3) Extreme HIV infection phenotypes. During 2020, an additional research line in SARS-CoV2 has been incorporated to the team.