Dr. Navarro received his Ph.D. in molecular parasitology in 1994 from the University of Murcia, Spain. He then did postdoctoral research in trypanosome molecular biology at the Rockefeller University in New York and later did postdoctoral research in trypanosome cell biology at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom. He obtained a permanent research position at the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) in 2002 and is currently chief of laboratory at the Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine "López-Neyra" in Granada. He received the Alumbres Award from the Enma Egea Foundation in 2003.

Miguel Navarro is examining the way parasites such as Trypanosoma brucei, which causes African sleeping sickness, elude the host’s immune response by changing their protein coats. His research uses molecular and cell biology tools, including nuclear architecture analysis through three-dimensional microscopy, proteomics, and functional complementation of promoter activity.