He studied Medicine at the National University of Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina. He obtained his MSc in Cellular Biology and his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the Austral University of Chile. He has completed pre and postdoctoral research stays in Argentina, Spain, Germany and the United States. He has received the Best Doctoral Thesis Award from the Chilean Academy of Sciences and other national and international distinctions. Currently, he is Director of the Center for Biomedical Research and Innovation at the Universidad de los Andes and Director of the PhD Program in Biomedicine at the Faculty of Medicine.

His research focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurodevelopment, focusing on the process of generating neurons during fetal development or neurogenesis. In this context, he has obtained funding from national and international agencies and has trained numerous undergraduate and graduate students, as well as training post-doctoral fellows. Currently, his research group is focused on two lines of research: (i) understanding the cellular mechanisms underlying alterations in the neurogenic process and, consequently, neurodevelopmental disorders; and (ii) study the effects of maternal stress during pregnancy (prenatal stress) on fetal neurodevelopment and its postnatal consequences