Marc Yeste, FHEA, FRSB, FYAE graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Biology)
from the University of Girona, an MSc in Biotechnology, and a European PhD in
Reproductive Biology. He also graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and a Bachelor
of Political Science and Sociology (extraordinary award for the best academic
score) from the National University of Distance Education (UNED), and read
additional courses of the Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Philosophy.
Marc
was a Visiting Researcher at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of
London (2006-2007) and was promoted to Assistant Professor of Cell Biology at
the Faculty of Human Medicine, University of Girona (2008). In 2011, he moved
to the Department of Animal Medicine and Surgery, Autonomous University of
Barcelona, as a Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Research Fellow. He taught
Reproductive Technology and Physiology of Obstetrics, and Animal Reproduction
at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. In 2014, Marc joined the Nuffield
Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health, University of Oxford, as a Marie
Curie Fellow, and began to lecture in the MSc in Clinical Embryology, in
which he is still involved. In 2016, he returned to the University of Girona as
a Senior Research Fellow (Ramón y Cajal).
Currently,
Marc is the Director of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Technology
(INTEA; www.udg.edu/en/instituts/intea),
University of Girona, and he is an ICREA Academia Professor of Cell Biology at
the Department of Biology. He is also a Principal Investigator at the Centre
for Reproductive Biotechnology (TechnoSperm; www.technosperm.com). He teaches at the
Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Nursing, the Faculty of Sciences and the
Polytechnic School, and for the MSc courses in Food Biotechnology, and in
Molecular Biology and Biomedicine. In addition, he has been a Guest Lecturer at
the University of Oxford (UK), the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain),
the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), the University of Alicante (Spain), the Antonio
Nariño University (Colombia), the Federal University of Lavras (Brazil) and the
University of Murcia (Spain).
On
the other hand, Marc is Editor-in-Chief of Animal Reproduction Science (Elsevier);
Senior Editor of Scientific Reports (the multidisciplinary journal of the
Nature publishing group); Associate Editor of BMC Biology, Reproduction,
Fertility and Development (CSIRO Publishing), Frontiers in Physiology
(Frontiers) and Frontiers in Endocrinology (Frontiers); and Editorial
Board Member of Theriogenology and Cryobiology (Elsevier). He has been a peer reviewer for
more than 130 scientific journals, and an expert evaluator for research grants
at different funding agencies. He
was the Chair of the International Conference on Boar Semen Preservation
(2019-2024), and a member of the Board of Governors of the Association for
Applied Animal Andrology (AAAA, 2018-2020).
His
research has tackled different angles of Reproductive Biology in mammals
(encompassing humans, pigs, cattle, horses, donkeys, sheep, mice, cats and
dogs): sperm physiology (including sperm capacitation), interactions of sperm
with epithelial cells from different reproductive tissues (epididymis and
fallopian tube/oviduct), presence and growth of microbes in semen and
implications for its preservation, sperm cryopreservation, cryopreservation of
oocytes and embryos, genetics of infertility, oocyte activation deficiency, effects of aging on reproductive health, in
vitro maturation of oocytes, and fertility preservation.
Marc’s
track-record includes about 400 publications: >250 papers and >130
abstracts in SCI/JCR-indexed journals, mostly Q1-ranked. In addition, he has
authored five articles in non-scientific, dissemination journals, 18 book
chapters (editor in three), and >260 contributions to congresses (>30 as
invited, plenary speaker), and is a patent inventor. He has taken part in more
than 100 research grants and contracts with companies (national and
international), including funding from the European Commission (FP7, H2020 and
Horizon Europe programmes), retaining the PI role in >40. Thus far, Marc has
supervised 16 PhD students, 15 post-docs, 30 MSc students and >60
undergraduate students. Moreover, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Medicine (RSM), and a member of the European Society of Human Reproduction and
Embryology (ESHRE), the Society for Cryobiology (SfC), the European Society of
Domestic Animal Reproduction (ESDAR), the European Federation of Animal Science
(EAAP), and the Spanish Society of Animal Reproduction (AERA).
Finally,
Marc’s teaching and research activities have been recognised nationally and
internationally. He was habilitated as a Full Professor by the Catalan Agency
for Quality Assessment of Universities (AQU) and by the National Agency for
Quality Assessment and Accreditation, Spain (ANECA), and was awarded the I3,
Outstanding Research Certificate (Ministry of Science, Innovation and
Universities, Spain) in 2019. In addition, he has been recognised as a
Chartered Biologist (CBiol) by the Royal Society of Biology, and as a Chartered
Scientist (CSci) and Chartered Science Teacher (CSciTeach) by the Science
Council. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Biology (RSB), a Fellow of the Young Academy of Europe (YAE),
and a Member of the Royal European Academy of Doctors. In 2023, he was
appointed Secretary of the Young Academy of Europe.