Víctor Manuel González Zúñiga born in Poza Rica, Veracruz, and got his Bachelor Degree in Biology from the Universidad Veracruzana. Then he moved to Cuernavaca, Morelos with the interest to learn Molecular Biology in the Centro de Investigación Sobre Fijación de Nitrógeno. There, he became involved in the characterization of repeated DNA sequences and genomic rearrangements in Rhizobium. Soon afterwards he obtained his Master Degree in Biomedical Sciences, with a work related to the distribution of plasmid sequences in R. etli strains from distinct geographic origins. He spent some years as a researcher in the Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, where he won the Annual Research Award in 1995, for his contribution to understand the frequency of mutations conferring fluoroquinolone resistance to Salmonella. His Doctoral work was done at the Instituto de Biotecnología, on the characterization of the positive control region of the enhancer binding protein NifA. This work put forward the importance of specific amino acids for the recognition between NifA and the RNApol-s54 holoenzyme. He coordinated the group that achieved the first complete genome of an organism, Rhizobium etli, done in México. Since 1998 he belongs to the staff of the Program of Evolutionary Genomics  

Genetics