Maria Mittelbrunn - Biography#

María Mittelbrunn, PhD, is a distinguished immunologist and principal investigator renowned for her pioneering contributions to the fields of immunometabolism, inflammaging and age-related diseases. She received her Doctorate in Biomedicine, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the School of Medicine, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, in 2006, graduating Cum Laude with Extraordinary Prize and is currently Head of the Immunometabolism & Inflammation Laboratory at the Centro de Biología Molecular “Severo Ochoa” (CSIC-UAM), Madrid, Spain, where she holds a tenured research position with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Since 2024, she also serves as Visiting Professor at the Columbia Center for Translational Immunology and the Columbia Center for Human Longevity, Columbia University, New York.

Dr. Mittelbrunn was trained with extensive postdoctoral experience at the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), following which she led research groups and held leadership positions including Group Leader at Hospital 12 de Octubre. Her scientific work has profoundly advanced understanding of how aging reshapes the immune system and how age-associated alterations in T cells drive chronic systemic inflammation (“inflammaging”), multimorbidity, and a spectrum of age-related pathologies including cardiovascular and metabolic decline. Her laboratory’s research integrates cellular immunology, metabolism, and translational approaches to identify mechanisms by which immune aging contributes to systemic senescence, and to explore therapeutic strategies to delay or reverse age-associated diseases.

Dr. Mittelbrunn’s influential publications include high-impact articles in Science, Nature Reviews Immunology, Nature Immunology, Cell Metabolism, Circulation, and others, demonstrating leadership in the field of adaptive immunity and aging. Her work on T cell mitochondrial dysfunction and systemic aging has set new paradigms for understanding healthy aging and immune resilience.

She has been awarded numerous national and international honors, including the L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Award (2015), Banco Sabadell Award for Biomedical Research (2022), and is a member of the Royal Spanish Academy of Science. Her research has been supported by prestigious competitive grants including European Research Council Starting (2016) and Consolidator Grants (2022), reflecting broad international recognition of her scientific excellence.

Dr. Mittelbrunn has supervised multiple PhD theses and postdoctoral fellows, contributes actively to scientific education and organization of international symposia, and continues to shape the future of immunology research, particularly in the intersection of immune function, aging and chronic disease.