Virginia Arechavala Gomeza

Virginia Arechavala-Gomeza is an Ikerbasque Research Professor. She is the head of the Nucleic Acids Therapies for Rare Diseases (NAT-RD) group at Biobizkaia HRI and Chair of COST Action “Delivery of Antisense RNA ThERapeutics (DARTER).
Trained as a pharmacist (University of the Basque Country, Spain), she completed her education with an MSc in Immunopharmacology (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow) and a PhD in the molecular basis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (King’s College London, 2005). As a postdoctoral researcher (Imperial College London and University College London), she participated and the first two clinical trials (both investigator-led) of the orphan drug eteplirsen, and in the preclinical development of this and other nucleic acids therapeutics currently approved by the FDA for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Since 2013, thanks to a Miguel Servet Fellowship and a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant, she leads the NAT-RD (previously Neuromuscular Disorders) research group at Biobizkaia HRI. She was appointed as an Ikerbasque Research Professor in 2019 and her main interest is the development of better methods to evaluate candidate treatments for neuromuscular disorders, such as advanced therapies. Through the international network DARTER, (www.antisensera.eu, over 460 researchers in 31 countries), she aims to improve the delivery of oligonucleotide drugs to target tissues. She was recently appointed as a member of the Board of Directors of the recently created “Society for RNA Therapeutics” http://www.srnat.org, that aims to support translational research and development of RNA therapeutics.
Prof Arechavala-Gomeza has authored many scientific publications (cited over 4000 times, with a third of them cited over 100 times). Publications include invited contributions, several book chapters, and an edited book. She serves in several Spanish and international grant review panels, has collaborated as an expert with the European Medicines Agency and she was a member of the Basque Drug Research Ethics Committee (CEIm-E) (2020-2022).
Her group’s research funding comes from European, Spanish, and Basque institutional grants, as well as patient’s associations. She has contributed to the development of several approved orphan drugs, being one of her contributions the development of methodological tools to assess the efficacy these treatments (the “Arechavala-Gomeza method” and methods based on it have been used in the evaluation of several clinical trials). Her group has also optimised methods for preclinical screening of drugs in cell culture (myoblots) that has led to collaborations with companies to screen small molecules, and in 2019 was awarded with the “Ezkertze-excellence in research award” by the Cruces University Hospital. In 2019, Prof Arechavala-Gomeza participated in the creation of Miramoon Pharma, a spin-off company where she serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board.
As well as presenting in over 60 international research meetings, Prof Arechavala-Gomeza actively participates in science communication activities in English and Spanish, many of which are easily accessible online. She is particularly interested in the accessibility of research results: she is involved in several activities to promote the publication of “negative” results (including editing special issues in the subject) and has contributed to the planning of a Basque institutional health repository.
Her role as a mentor was awarded in 2017 with the Outstanding Mentor Award by the Society of Spanish Researchers in UK. She has supervised many masters and degree research projects in the UK and in Spain, is currently supervising two predoctoral students and has served in many masters’ and thesis’ tribunals in Spain and abroad.
Prof Arechavala-Gomeza is a founding member of CERU/SRUK (Spanish researchers in the UK). As a female researcher and mother of two girls who took extensive maternity leave and worked part-time during her early postdoctoral years, she is very committed to promote the role of women in STEM and is member of several local and international networks in the field, as well as member of the equality committee at the IIS Biocruces Bizkaia, responsible for drafting the first Gender Equality Plan of the institution.