The objective of the Academia Europaea is the progress and promotion of excellence in the humanities; law; economic, social and political sciences; maths; medicine and all branches of natural and technological sciences, in any part of the world for the benefit of society and for the progress of education of all ages. Formed by representatives from science and academia, the institution seeks to promote European research, advise governments and international organisations on scientific matters, and promote interdisciplinary and international research. The Academia Europaea publishes the European Review magazine, through Cambridge Journals.
Santiago Elena Fito is a research professor at the CSIC and co-director of the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio, University of Valencia / CSIC), where he heads the Evolutionary and Systems Virology Group. He is also an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute (New Mexico, USA) and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). He has a degree in Biology and completed his doctoral thesis on Evolutionary Genetics of RNA (ribonucleic acid) viruses at the University of Valencia.
His work focuses on the study of the mechanisms by which RNA viruses adapt to their hosts and how this adaptation results in the manipulation of cellular resources for their own benefit. To do this, he combines experimental evolution, molecular and omic biology, molecular epidemiology and mathematical modelling. Among other merits, he is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAA & S) and, recently, the Academia Europaea.
