Dr. Begoña Benito Villabriga becomes director of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) after combining, in recent years, healthcare, research and teaching at the Vall d'Hebron Campus. She holds a degree and doctorate in Medicine from the University of Barcelona and specialized in Cardiology at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.

"It is a great privilege for me to have the opportunity to be the director of the research center of a reference hospital such as the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital. Thanks to the work of all the professionals and managers who have preceded me, VHIR is in the best position to successfully face the coming years, which includes the launch of the new building that will help to give an answer to many of the current and future challenges of biomedical research", says Dr. Begoña Benito, director of VHIR.

Her career has focused on the field of arrhythmias, with a special interest, both clinical and scientific, in the study of hereditary disorders causing arrhythmias and sudden death. To complement his knowledge in this field, she has completed several training courses in basic and experimental research and in the clinical and interventional management of arrhythmias in reference centers such as the Montreal Heart Institute, in Canada, and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Harvard University, in Boston.

After 7 years of experience at the Hospital del Mar in the Cardiology service and in the Heart Biomedical Research group, in 2019 she joined the Arrhythmia Unit of the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, where among other activities, she implemented a specific clinical consultation aimed at patients and relatives at risk of hereditary sudden death, in connection with the Family Cardiopathies and Pediatric Cardiology Unit.

In parallel, as the coordinator of Translational Research within the Cardiovascular Diseases research group at VHIR, she has developed her research activity mainly focused on the study of cardiac remodeling and its repercussions on arrhythmias.

In the teaching field, she is an associate professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and conducts lectures in several master's degrees and continuing education courses.