Francisco Sepúlveda Valenzuela is an investigator at the Centro de Estudios Científicos (CECs) in Valdivia, Chile and a Professor of Physiology at the Faculty of Medicine and Science, Universidad San Sebastián. His undergraduate education was undertaken at Universidad de Chile followed by a PhD in biochemistry at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. His subsequent career took him to Cambridge, UK, in 1978 as a postdoctoral fellow at the AFRC Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics Research (now the BBSRC Babraham Institute). After a brief stay as Maître de Conférences at the University of Nice, France, Sepúlveda went back to the AFRC Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics Research to take up a position as an investigator and became Senior Principal Scientific Officer in 1990. In 1994 he moved to Chile becoming a Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Chile in Santiago and a researcher at the Centro de Estudios Científicos de Santiago. In 2000 he moves to the new Centro de Estudios Científicos CECs in Valdivia. In addition to his research activities he acts as CECs institutional representative in civil society and grant-giving agencies. He is a Senior editor at the Journal of Physiology

Since his work on intestinal transport of amino acids for his PhD, epithelial transport has been a major part of Sepúlveda´s subsequent career. His interest in epithelial transport, particularly the role played by ion channels, has continued. His work has ranged from structure/function studies of chloride and potassium channels in heterologous expression systems to whole organ or animal studies. Of most recent interest has been neuroepithelia such as the choroid plexus and the ciliary body of the eye. Techniques employed include electrophysiological and molecular biological approaches with extensive use of mice with genetic modifications to understand physiological processes

Sepúlveda has been Supervisor in Physiology at Christ's College, University of Cambridge, and External Lecturer at the Departments of Physiology of Queen Elizabeth College and that of King's College, University of London, UK. He has been Visiting Professor at Université de Paris-6 Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France. Currently he teaches Physiology at the Universidad San Sebastián. He has supervised PhD students at the Universities of Cambridge and Paris-6, and in Chile at the Universidad de Chile and the Universidad Austral de Chile