Senior investigator Dr. Anca Violeta Gafencu

Dr. Anca Violeta Gafencu was trained as a biochemist at the University of Bucharest and has more than 30 years of experience in molecular and cellular biology. She leads the Department of Gene Regulation and Molecular Therapies at the Institute of Cellular Biology and Pathology “Nicolae Simionescu” of the Romanian Academy. Her research focuses on the biomedical mechanisms underlying cellular transport of molecules, lipoprotein metabolism, and apolipoprotein gene regulation, and their involvement in various processes under physiological conditions and in diseases such as atherosclerosis and diabetes. She was a visiting scientist at the University of Crete (Greece), the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), the University of Debrecen (Hungary), and the University of Patras (Greece).  Her scientific output includes forty papers indexed in PubMed, ten in other databases, and two book chapters.  Her publications received more than 2,270 citations, with an H-index of 20. Her scientific achievements have been recognized with major distinctions, including the CNCSIS Prize for the project “Regulation of apolipoprotein gene clusters – an innovative therapeutic approach of neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases,” the Excellence Prize of the National Foundation for Science and Art (2007), and the “Nicolae Simionescu” Prize of the Romanian Academy (2025).