Dr. José Carlos Rodríguez-Cabello (1963) is Full Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Valladolid (UVa, Spain). He holds degrees in Chemistry (1986) and Physics (1997) and obtained his PhD in Physics at UVa in 1994. After postdoctoral stays at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, the University of Essen and the University of Minnesota, he founded the BIOFORGE research group in 1997, which he continues to lead. BIOFORGE is internationally recognised as a pioneer in the design and production of recombinant protein polymers, in particular elastin-like recombinamers (ELRs), and their translation into advanced biomedical devices.
Prof. Rodríguez-Cabello is author of more than 250 articles in indexed international journals (h-index 50 in Scopus, 60 in Google Scholar), 25 book chapters and over 525 communications at international conferences. He is senior inventor on 15 patents, including 5 PCT applications that have been transferred and are currently under exploitation. His scientific trajectory includes participation in 103 research projects, acting as principal investigator in 68 of them, among which are the coordination of an FP6 Marie Curie network (BioPolySurf), the H2020 project ELASTISLET and 12 projects of the Spanish National Plan. Over his career he has managed more than 9 M€ of competitive funding and currently leads projects totalling around 2.54 M€.
Training and mentoring are a central part of his activity: he has supervised more than 30 Master theses, 26 PhD theses and 12 postdoctoral researchers, many of whom now hold positions in academia, industry and research management in several countries. His work has been recognised with awards such as the UVa Social Council Research Award, the Castilla y León Health Award and the Antonio Villadot Award given by the Iberian Society of Biomaterials and Biomechanics (SIBB, 2025). In 2024 he was elected Fellow Biomaterials Science and Engineering, acknowledging his international impact in the biomaterials field, and in 2025 he was appointed to the Special Teaching Category as a Visiting Professor at the University of Havana (Cuba).
Beyond his scientific production, Prof. Rodríguez-Cabello has served in leadership roles in European scientific societies (including ESB, SIBB and GEP) and regularly acts as reviewer for high-impact journals in polymer science, biomaterials and nanomedicine. He has also contributed to national and international evaluation panels in the field of materials science. In parallel, he is co-founder of two start-ups: Technical Proteins Nanobiotechnology S.L., where he serves as CEO, and CellDrive 3D S.L., where he is Chief Scientific Adviser, exemplifying a strong track record in knowledge transfer and innovation in biomaterials and regenerative medicine.
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