Nuria Flames

Nuria Flames Bonilla (Valencia, 1977) is a CSIC Research Scientist (Investigadora Científica) at the Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia (IBV-CSIC), Department of Molecular and Cellular Pathology and Therapy, where she leads the Developmental Neurobiology Unit. Her research studies how neuronal diversity is generated and maintained in the brain and the genetic mechanisms that may underlie some neurodevelopmental disorders, using different animal models. Her work focuses on how different neuron types are generated in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, and in particular on the ADF neuron, which senses environmental information much like human sensory neurons.

She graduated in Biology from the Universidad de Valencia (2000) and obtained her PhD in Neuroscience from the Universidad Miguel Hernández (2005), with a thesis on the molecular mechanisms involved in the tangential migration of cortical interneurons, carried out at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante under the supervision of Óscar Marín (2001-2006). Between 2006 and 2011 she was a postdoctoral researcher in Oliver Hobert's laboratory (HHMI, Columbia University, New York). In 2011 she joined the IBV-CSIC as a Ramón y Cajal researcher to start her own group, becoming Tenured Scientist (2014-2023) and then Research Scientist; in 2022 she was a visiting research fellow at King's College London for six months.

She has led, as principal investigator, projects funded by the European Research Council (Starting Grant on the gene regulatory mechanisms that generate serotonergic neurons and their link to mental disorders, and Consolidator Grant NEUROCODE), Marie Curie Actions (Career Integration Grant), the Spanish State Research Plan and the Generalitat Valenciana. In 2010 she received the Rapid Response Innovation Award of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Young Investigator Award of the National Association for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) and an honourable mention of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid Young Investigator Award. She has been an invited speaker at meetings such as the European Worm Meeting (2024), the European Conference of Comparative Neurobiology (2025) and the Asia-Pacific Worm Meeting (2026).