Affiliation: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

Dr. Alfredo Varela-Echavarría is a developmental biologist studying regeneration in garden slugs. He holds a degree in biology from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL) and a PhD in molecular genetics and microbiology from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He began his research career in developmental neurobiology as a postdoctoral fellow at Guy’s Hospital, King’s College London, and continued this work at the Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He also conducted sabbatical research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH) and the Department of Biology at Duke University. He is currently a tenured senior researcher at UNAM, where he leads the team that pioneered the use of the land slug Deroceras laeve as a model for regeneration studies.