 He obtained a Pharmacy degree by the Complutense University of Madrid, then joined the incipient research group of Federico Gago at the University of Alcalá as a PhD student.He became involved in a project financed mostly by Menarini Pharmaceuticals, aimed at the rationalization of the biochemical activity of a number of phospholipase A2 (PLA2) enzymes from different sources and, ultimately, at the design of novel inhibitors of human synovial fluid PLA2 tagged as anti-inflammatory agents.During his thesis development, Ortiz visited and worked at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg.