Isabel Fariñas received her PhD in Biology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona with a thesis done at the Institute Cajal of the CSIC in Madrid. After a postdoctoral period (1993-1998) as a Fulbright and HFSPO fellow and later as a researcher at the University of California at San Francisco, she joined the University of Valencia where she is Professor in Cell Biology and director of the Molecular Neurobiology Unit. Her entire scientific background falls within the field of neurobiology and her best contributions have come in two areas. Her postdoctoral studies contributed to establish the essential functions of the neurotrophic factors of the families of neurotrophins and GDNF. Her studies in genetically modified mice contributed to the mapping of trophic dependencies and of the functional relationships between factors and receptors, such as the promiscuity of neurotrophin-3 or the identification of c-ret as a GDNF receptor. Her studies as an independent researcher focus on the niche biology of neural stem cells (NSCs). Her group described the first "angiocrine" factor, the so-called PEDF, whose actions contributed to establishing that blood vessels are a key element of neurogenic niches. In addition, her group has contributed to establishing the concept of quiescence as an actively regulated state by identifying the actions of neurotrophin-3 as an angiocrine pro-quiescence factor, to uncover transcriptional functions of cell cycle regulatory molecules in the maintenance of NSCs or to define the role of cell adhesion in the regulation of their activation state, among others. She has been a member of the boards of the Spanish Society of Neuroscience, the Spanish Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, and the International Society of Differentiation and is now board member of the Spanish Society of Developmental Biology. Her group belongs to the Center for Biomedical Research in Network on Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIBERNED), the National Cell Therapy Network (TerCel), the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine of the University of Valencia (BIOTECMED) and is Prometheus Group of Excellence of the Valencian Community. She was appointed member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2013 and chosen by the Fundación Botín-Banco Santander to be part of her science program to encourage technological transfer in 2014. Number of six-year terms (sexenios) awarded: 5 (last: 2015). Number of doctoral theses supervised: 11 (plus 7 in progress). Articles published with citations: 117. Total number of citations: 12,203 (WOS), 16,060 (Google Scholar). Average number of citations per article: 105. Index h: 47 (WOS), 49 (Google Scholar). I10 Index: 77. Number of postdocs supervised: 15.