María earned her bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) in 2000 and her PhD from Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) in 2006, where she worked at the Center for Biological Research of CSIC (CIB-Margarita Salas) in the group led by Professor Bernardo Schvartzman. Before starting the PhD, she worked for 3 years in the group headed by Dr. Felix Camiña and Professor Santiago Rodriguez Segade at the University of Santiago de Compostela (1999-2002). She had two postdoctoral positions in London, at the Imperial College London and MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences.
In 2010 she moved to INIBIC and in 2023, she moved to CINBIO (University of Vigo), where the group continued their research projects. She has published more than 25 research articles in journals such as Nature, Nat Cell Biol, Ann Rheum Dis, Cell Death and Disease or Oncogene and has registered 7 patents. She has already supervised 4 PhD (international mention) and she is supervising 5 more research thesis students, 5 postdoctoral fellows and 1 research assistant. Since 2013, she has received funding from ISCIII as well as from other funding agencies and private foundations and participated in different EU Calls. She is currently PI in a HORIZON2020-FET-OPEN and a HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCES-03 grants. Her group is part of the most competitive research groups funded by Xunta de Galicia, receiving continuous funding since 2017. Dr. Mayán is a project evaluator for the National Agencies (AEI and ISCIII), the KU Leuven (Belgium), The Dutch Research Council (NWO), Canada Foundation for Innovation, Research Council of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), the Arthritis Research UK and other public and private entities. She has organized more than 14 international conferences/workshops that have been funded by different entities such as SEBBM or The Company of Biologist Ltd. (UK).
She is the founder and was the first coordinator of the Scientific Group “Chemical Biology” and “Women in Science” of the SEBBM and participates in the ASEICA-Woman space coordinated by Marisol Soengas from the Spanish Association of Cancer Research (ASEICA). Since 2019, she is at the Governing Bodies of the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM) and ANIH. Her results have been recognized by the Spanish Society of Rheumatology (SER) with two awards in two different panels; Basic Science and Osteoarthritis. She has recently received the “Francisco Guitián Ojea” Award from the Galician Royal Academy of Sciences (RAGC) for her research in oncology (PCT/ES2020/070269, patent under licensing). She is actively involved in online scientific informative activities and in social media as well as in radio, TV and press. She organices several dissemination activities each year in collaboration with Museos Científicos A Coruña, Corbi Foundation, AECC-Coruña, SEBBM, ASEICA, National Museum of Natural Sciences (Madrid), G-night under the European Researchers Night (Maria Sklodowska-Curie Actions), etc. Dr. Mayán was co-Chair of the last International Gap Junction Conference (https://igjconference.org) that was held in July 2022, the first time in Spain (A Coruña). She is the Chair of the next 46th Congress of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM) and participate as organiser of the ASEICA 40th ANNIVERSARY CONGRESS.
