ALBERTO
ZAFRA GÓMEZ

Professor of Chemistry at the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Granada and at ibs.Granada. Doctor from this University, I carried out pre- and postdoctoral studies at the Free University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and Coimbra University (Portugal). My PhD thesis, focused on the determination of bisphenol A and related compounds in biological and environmental samples, received an extraordinary PhD award in 2001. After a 6 month postdoc period, I was recruited by Puleva Biotech S.A. (2001-2006), as a researcher, and later by NeuronBioPharma S.A. (2007-2009) as Head of R&D&I Management and the Department of Chemistry of Natural Products. These are some of the companies with which I have maintained scientific collaborations of interest during my subsequent research career. From the point of view of scientific production, I am the author of 146 scientific articles of high relevance as shown by the fact that they are all published in indexed international journals of different specialities with a high impact index (106 in Q-1, 119 in T-1 in the specialities of Analytical Chemistry, Environment, Health, Toxicology, Biotechnology and Food Science and Technology). I have also published 6 books, 8 book chapters and I am co-inventor of 4 patents (2 national and 2 international) in exploitation by the company that owns the rights. I have a total of 6461 citations, with an H-index of 50 and an i-10 index of 112 in Google Scholar; and 4305 citations with an H-index of 40 in the Web of Science. In addition, I am co-author of 177 communications to national and international scientific conferences and meetings, many of them as oral communications. I have participated and/or participate in 31 projects and 10 research contracts funded in public and private calls, both national and international, being in many of them the principal investigator and funder of funding for the research group. I have supervised or am currently supervising a total of 16 doctoral theses and 55 final projects (master's or degree), contributing my experience and knowledge to 71 students, many of whom are now successfully pursuing their professional careers at the University or outside it. All this dissemination of my research is highly relevant and has meant a contribution to the generation of knowledge, to the generation of ideas and hypotheses and to results with recognised positive repercussions for society. It should be noted that I work in various scientific fields, always with multidisciplinary teams (nutrition, biotechnology, neuroscience or chemistry). I am a specialist in the use of separative techniques coupled to mass spectrometry; in the development of analytical methods based on different sample processing techniques; and in the validation of these methodologies. My main line of work focuses on the study of the presence of drugs and synthetic chemicals that may have biological activity as endocrine disruptors in different environmental compartments (aquatic sediments, agricultural soils, WWTP sludge and compost from these sludges) including several marine bioindicators. The second research line, broadly related, focuses on the possible bioaccumulation of these pollutants in human biological tissues and fluids (placenta, nail, hair, urine, serum and plasma, breast milk and faeces) as biomarkers, and their relationship with the appearance of cancer in adulthood and obesity or diseases such as diabetes or metabolic syndrome, mainly in school-age children. The aim of both lines is to study the behaviour, fate and evolution of pollutants, their possible transfer to the trophic chain and their relationship with the appearance of the aforementioned dysfunctions in human health from childhood to adulthood. The trajectory summarised here represents a great contribution to society and science.