FERNANDO FACAL

I graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 2016, training in research during the Degree with the Help of the Laboratory Internship Program, granted by the Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer. In 2017 I began my training as a psychiatrist in the Health Area of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). At the same time, I became part of the Psychiatric Genetics group, dedicating during my training period the afternoons to research training. In January 2022, after the end of my training period as psychiatrist, I began with a two-year contract Río Hortega (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), which allowed me to reconcile the research work in Psychiatric Genetics with clinical practice, implementing a program of First Psychotic Episodes in the Health Area of Santiago de Compostela. In April 2023 I defended my doctoral thesis entitled Genetics of Psychiatric Disorders: Genomic approaches assuming polygenicity and pleiotropy, achieving the rating Cum Laude. My thesis directors were Javier Costas and Ángel Carracedo. My line of research during the thesis and also after it focuses on the study of the genetic architecture of mental disorders from a polygenic perspective. My works about polygenic risk scores, published in prestigious journals in the field of psychiatry, have a translational view, expected to bring precision personalized medicine to psychiatric clinical practice in the near future, primarily for patient stratification.