Javier León (Madrid, 1955) was Graduated in Biological Sciences and Graduated in Pharmacy in the Universidad Complutense. He also holds the title of Specialist in Microbiology (FIR, Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla, Santander). He defended his PhD Thesis in 1983 and did the postdoctoral research in New York University Cancer Center (1984- 1986). In 1986 got the position of “Profesor Titular” of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the University of Cantabria and in 1994 the position of “Catedrático”. In 2007 he joined the Instituto de Biomedicina y Biotecnología (IBBTEC), a joint center Universidad de Cantabria-CSIC. He has worked as visiting scientist for a total of 2.5 years in Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Seattle) and Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Cancer Center (Boston).
His group was established in 1983 and has been funded by 13 consecutive grants from “Plan Estatal de I+D” as IP, as well as equipment grants and local grants. He has supervised 21 PhD Thesis and published 96 research papers in indexed journals, being first or corresponding author in 64 of them. His H-index is 34 with more than 3800 citations and i10 index of 69 (Scopus). His research interests have been: a) MYC oncogene roles in cell cycle regulation and interactions with p53 and p27; b) MYC oncogene in chronic lymphocytic and chronic myeloid leukemia; and c) Roles of MYC and MNT oncogenes in lymphoma, which is the most active current area of research.
J. León teaches in the courses ““Molecular Biology of the Cell” and "Biology of Cancer" of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences degrees, as well as the Master of Molecular Biology and Biomedicine. He is a correspondent member of the Real Academia Nacional de Farmacia. He has co-authored a textbook (“Manual de Genética Molecular”, Ed. Síntesis) and filed three patents. He has served as Head of the Department of Molecular Biology, Director of the IBBTEC and Vice-Chancellor for Research of the UC. He has also served in evaluation panels of Spanish Plan Estatal, Cancer Research-UK and national research agencies of several countries.
