Adrián comes from Galicia (Spain). He studied Biotechnology at the University of León, where he did his thesis on endocrine disruptors in zebrafish at the Cell Biology Department, and visited the Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS) working on neurobiology. Alongside his studies, he combined research with his other passion, science communication.

He moved to Maastricht for the Master in Biomedical Sciences, working first on mesenchymal stem cell–macrophage communication on micropatterned surfaces, and later on an in vitro model of glaucoma with retinal ganglion cells, at the Ophthalmology department (MUMC+).

He joined MERLN as a PhD student under the supervision of Paul Wieringa and Lorenzo Moroni, working in biofabrication with organoids, iPSCs, and organ-on-a-chip systems, building 3D platforms that could host neurons alongside other tissues. During this work, he developed FiberCyte, a sacrificial templating technology for making 3D patterns in soft hydrogels, and applied it to build a blood–brain barrier chip and an endometriosis-on-chip model.

He is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at MERLN, turning FiberCyte into a product, funded by a Faculty of Impact fellowship from the Dutch Research Council (NWO), combining technical development and spin-off formation to bring the technology out of the lab and into the market.