Antonio Ferrer-Montiel is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Miguel Hernández University (UMH), and director of the Institute for Research, Development and Innovation in Healthcare Biotechnology of  Elche (IDiBE). He obtained his doctorate from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Alicante in 1989 and continued his training at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) for 8 years. In 1998, he joined the Miguel Hernández University as an associate professor, becoming full Professor in 2007. In 2005 he was appointed deputy director of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMC) of the UMH, and in 2011 its director. In 2018, he promoted the transformation of the IBMC into an Institute focused on Healthcare Biotechnology (IDiBE). His field of research is the role of the cutaneous neurosensory system in the pathophysiology of chronic inflammation, pain and itching and the goal of developing therapeutic tools that relieve them. He has published 155 scientific articles in international journals, led 22 R&D projects, registered 30 patents, directed 25 doctoral theses, and promoted the clinical development of 4 drug candidates.

Prof. Ferrer has been a member of the boards of directors of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM) and the Biophysical Society of Spain (SBE), president of the SBE (2014-2018) and, since 2019, is the representative Spanish at the International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB). Since 2020, he is the editor of the SEBBM magazine. In addition, Prof. Ferrer has been manager of the National Plan for the pharmacology sub-area of ​​the National Plan for R&D in Biomedicine (Ministry of Science and Innovation) and is coordinator of the Spanish Network on Ion Channels. He has received several national awards for his research career (Grünenthal, Alberto Sols, Brucker, and Beckman), and has promoted the creation of 5 university biotech companies (spin-off) to transfer the advances of his research to patients.