Two Leading Academicians Join Element as Associate Editors

Prof. David Chaim Rubinsztein (H-index 159) is Professor of Molecular Neurogenetics and a Group Leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute,  University of Cambridge, UK. He also serves as Deputy Director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research. Prof. Rubinsztein earned his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB), Bachelor of Science in Medicine (BSc Med), and PhD from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He joined the University of Cambridge in 1993 as a Senior Registrar in genetic pathology. His research focuses on autophagy, particularly in the context of neurodegenerative diseases. His laboratory pioneered the strategy of autophagy upregulation as a possible therapeutic approach for various neurodegenerative disorders, and has identified drug candidates and  molecular pathways that may be exploited for clinical intervention. His work has significantly advanced the understanding of autophagy defects as a disease mechanism and contributed to fundamental discoveries in cell biology. Prof. Rubinsztein has been elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2004), Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO, 2011), Fellow of the Royal Society (UK, 2017), and Member of Academia Europaea (2022). He has received numerous honors, including the Graham Bull Prize (2007), the Thudichum Medal (2017), the Roger de Spoelberch Prize (2017), the Goudie Medal (2020), and the Movement Disorders Research Award by the American Academy of Neurology (2024). He has also been consistently recognized as a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher (2018-2023).

Prof. José Manuel Fernández-Real (H-index 113), with over 38,600 citations (Google Scholar), is Full Professor at the University of Girona (UdG), Spain, and Head of the Endocrinology and Nutrition Section at Dr. Josep Trueta Hospital, Girona, Spain. He is an outstanding research scientist at the Girona Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBGI) and leads the renowned Nutrition, Eumetabolism, and Health (NEH) group. He also serves as Scientific Director of "FatBank," a national biobank in Spain specializing in adipose tissue. In addition, he is Principal Investigator and member of the Steering Committee of the Spanish Biomedical Research Centre in Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición: CIBERobn), Spain. He previously served as Director of the Department of Medical Sciences at the University of Girona School of Medicine (2018–2023). He is currently Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Girona and President of the Catalan Diabetes Association. Prof. Fernández-Real obtained his MD and PhD from the University of Barcelona, Spain. He began his scientific career at the University Hospital of Girona, where he played a crucial role in establishing the first research institute in 2006 and in supporting the creation of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Girona in 2008. Over the past three decades, his research has focused on obesity, insulin resistance, and associated metabolic disorders. He has authored 538 PubMed-indexed articles, including over 270 as corresponding author and 108 as first author.  He is ranked among the top 1% of most-cited scientists globally across all fields (Stanford University analysis) and is listed among the 40 most-cited authors worldwide in Endocrinology (Google Scholar).