Patri Vergara is a professor in physiology at the veterinary faculty at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain, and in 2011, was elected the first woman president of the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science.

Vergara has published over 80 research papers in three main areas: the role of nitric oxide as the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the gut;[1][2][3] the role of gastrointestinal hormones (CCK, GLP-1) in the regulation of gastrointestinal motility;[4][5] and the mechanisms involved in the development of inflammatory bowel disease with special attention to mast cells [6][7][8] and NGF [9] In 1991, Vergara was nominated by the Spanish Society for Laboratory Animal Science (SECAL) as their scientific representative to the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS).

[10] Vergara co-founded the European College for Laboratory Animal Medicine (ECLAM) in 2000, and she served as a council member and treasurer until 2007.

Since 2000, she has been principal coordinator of a postgraduate training course[12] and master's degree in LAS[13] at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and in 2014, was instrumental in the creation of a postgraduate training course in LAS at the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS) in India.

Since 2014, she has served as the Spanish government's representative on the European Platform for Education and Training in Laboratory Animal Science (ETPLAS)[14]