Professor Jose Maria Polo graduated from Buenos Aires University as a Biochemist. In 2008, he obtained his PhD while researching lymphomagenesis at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine under the supervision of Professor Ari Melnick. He then moved to the Harvard Stem Cell Institute to work on nuclear reprogramming with Professor Konrad Hochedlinger. In 2011, Jose established his own independent research group at Monash University, and in 2014 he was awarded a Silvia and Charles Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship to continue his work in the epigenetic mechanisms underlying reprogramming and cell fate. In October 2021, Jose was recruited to the University of Adelaide as the inaugural Director of the Adelaide Centre for Epigenetics and Program Leader of the South Australian Immunogenomics Cancer Institute. At the University of Adelaide, he will continue his research on epigenetics and its applications to reprogramming, early embryogenesis and cancer.