Luis Alonso Herrera Montalvo
General Director
National Institute of Genomic Medicine of Mexico

He received his degree in Biology by the Faculty of Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM, acronym in Spanish), and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences by the same university. Later he completed a postdoctoral degree at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Stanford University School of Medicine, United States of America.

Between 1989 and 2004, he carried out research stays at the Institute of Human Genetics of the University Erlangen-Nürnberg, the Institute of Toxicology and Pharmacology at the University of Würzburg, Germany, and at the National Center for Toxicology Research of the Food and Drug Administration, United States of America.

He is a professor in Biomedical Sciences, where he teaches the course on Cellular and Molecular Pathology of Cancer, and the workshop Molecular Basis of Cancer, in the major of Biology of the School of Sciences.

The topics of his courses are reciprocally related to the content of his research. Dr. Herrera has been developing two relevant lines of research in the area of carcinogenesis. One of these has to do with neurocysticercosis and cancer. Dr. Herrera's research has focused on cysticercosis produced by Taenia solium larvae. The results of the experimental handling of some data and observations support the hypothesis that during cysticercosis by Taenia solium, the parasite can induce chromosomal instability in somatic cells of infected individuals that could increase the risk of developing diseases with an important genetic component such as cancer. Currently, he is very interested in validating a technique that can be of great help for the identification of people exposed to cysticercosis.

His other line of research concerns S-adenosyl-methionine (SAM) as a possible target for the action of xenobiotic agents. Its main objective is to study the role of SAM in the regulation of the response to cell damage induced by exposure to genotoxic agents. The effects of these investigations may help to raise new hypotheses on the molecular mechanisms involved in the induction of aneuploidy and on the role of SAM in the prevention of this type of damage.

Luis Alonso Herrera Montalvo has presented his analyses, research results, proposals and hypotheses in national and international congresses, courses and seminars to which he has been invited. For example, he presented the paper "Mutagenesis and carcinogenesis" at the International Course on Genetics and Cancer organized by the Mexican Association of Human Genetics; "Parasitosis in the etiology of cancer" at the XXII Annual Medical Meeting of the National Cancer Institute (INCan, acronym in Spanish); and he gave the lecture "Neurocysticercosis and cancer" at the Mexican Association of Human Genetics and at the XV National Congress of Parasitology.

He has also published numerous articles in high-impact, indexed journals such as the International Journal of Oncology, Trends in Parasitology and Mutation Research. He also has six book chapters, one of which appeared in the prestigious edition of Advanced Therapy in Gastroenterology and Liver Disease, one of the most important gastroenterology journals. His writings have been cited more than 260 times.

He is a member of the Academic Committee of the Biomedicine Unit, UNAM Faculty of Superior Studies Iztacala; the Ethics and Research Commissions of the General Hospital Manuel Gea González; the Research Commission of the INCan; and the Research Commission of the UNAM Faculty of Medicine. He has a seat at the Academic Committee of the Doctorate Program in Biomedical Sciences. He is a member of the National System of Researchers and a full member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Mexican Academy of Sciences.

For the last 10 years, he headed the Research Department of INCan, where he managed the Hereditary Cancer Clinic and the Prevention Research Center, as well as the prevention clinics in Torreon, Monterrey and Puebla.