He is also affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, for whom he served as Minister of Health from 2007 to 2009.

He was educated at the University of Valencia (MD, PhD), and completed his postdoctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and the University of East Anglia where he was a Senior Research Associate in the School of Biological Sciences.

His scientific production has received more than 11.000 citations in the fields of stem cell research, diabetes, biophysics of pancreatic islets and their pathophysiology.

He is Doctor Honoris causa by the Scientific Universities of the South (2013) and the National Mayor of San Marcos, Lima (2014).

In 2015 he was appointed Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom, a consultative body of the British Crown for the assistance and teaching of Medicine, founded by Enrique VIII, is now celebrating his first 500 years, becoming the first Spanish to receive this recognition