Department of Biochemistry, campus Zacatenco is located in Av. IPN 2508 at the corner of Av. Ticoman and Av. IPN in Alcaldía Gustavo A. Madero in Mexico city (DF) Zip code 07360. This campus is found not farther than 1 km westbound from metro station "Indios Verdes".
Department of Biochemistry was established in 1962, a year after the opening of campus Zacatenco of Cinvestav. Since then, the activity of the faculty of the department has dwell on two main areas, the generation of new knowledge in the field of biochemistry and the formation of new scientist (graduate studies). Along the years the faculty department has received different recognitions, among those, two National Science Awards and four Awardees from the Mexican Academy of Sciences (formerly the Academy of Scientific Research). Three of the present professors of the department had been presidents of the Mexican Biochemical Society.
From 1960 to 2021, the department has awarded 214 degrees of Master in Science and 101 degrees of Philosophy Doctor (Ph.D.). Most of these graduated students work in Universities either in Mexico or abroad.
Our graduate program involves 11 professors that are active scientists with international recognition in their fields of expertise; accordingly they all belong to the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI) with the following distribution, one is Professor Emeritus, one in level III, six in level II and three in level I.
The field of Biochemistry dwells in how cells transform energy in different organic molecules and chemical and physical properties when these molecules assemble in complex structures, like biological membranes, nucleic acids, proteins, etc. Biochemists also study how the physical and chemical signals modify cell behavior. All these changes depend upon a variable set of proteins, which have the property of recognizing these signals and modifying the activity of enzymes or inducing protein-protein interactions. All these elements are necessary to study in order to understand how cells manage to survive in harsh environments, adapt to them and to explain the development of diseases. To reach this level of knowledge is required new experimental approaches, so the new areas of biochemistry are also mastered in the department such as Ohmics (proteomics, genomics, metabolomics, etc), system biology and bioinformatics.
In the event that you would like to have more information on the activities of the Biochemistry department, please visit our web page at biochem.cinvestav.mx or contact us by phone at (55) 5749-3800 x 5216 with Lic. Angélica González Ceja or by e-mail: at coordinacion.bq@yupisnoopycinvestav.mx