Dr. Elisa Varela is the Principal Investigator of the Telomeres and Telomerase in Reproduction Group at FIVI-IVIRMA, Madrid, supported partly by a Torres Quevedo Contract. She obtained her Ph. D. in Biological Sciences, at the Autonomous University of Madrid in 1998, under the direction of Dr. M.J. Martínez, where she learned biochemistry and molecular biology, working with fungal enzymes involved in wood degradation. In 1999, she joined the laboratory led by Dr. M. Tien, at Pennsylvania State University (State College, PA, USA) as a postdoctoral fellow to learn the chemistry of free radicals and reactive oxygen species that attack wood.