Francisco Javier Benavente Martínez

FRANCISCO JAVIER BENAVENTE MARTÍNEZ, was born in 1951 (Silleda, Pontevedra, Spain) and studied Chemistry at the USC between 1969 and 1973. He then trained in organic chemistry with Professor Ignacio Ribas Marqués to carry out his doctoral thesis entitled “Síntesis de análogos de la hormona juvenil de insectos a partir del epóxido de alfa-pineno”.

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1980 he joined the laboratory of Dr. Mariano Esteban (Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York; 1980-83), to study the resistance of vaccinia virus towards the antiviral action of interferons and prostaglandins. He was later a Visiting Scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Aaron Shatkin, first at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology (Nutley, New Jersey; 1985-86), and then at the Center for the Advance of Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM, Piscataway, New Jersey, 1987-88), to study the regulation of reovirus gene expression.

Back to the USC, he started the Molecular Virology Research Group in the Faculty of Pharmacy to study the molecular biology of avian reoviruses and the mechanisms that control their interactions with the host cell, a research interest that is still going on nowadays. Javier Benavente became Associate Professor of the USC in 1985 and is University Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology since 2002. He currently teaches in the Faculty of Chemistry and in the Masters of Biotecnology and Biomedicine.