I received my bachelor's degree in Botany and Chemistry, and my master's degree in Biochemistry, from Kanpur University in India. Thereon I joined the Department of Biosciences and BioEngineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur to pursue a PhD degree, where I studied the role of Retinoic Acid signaling in the development of the vertebrate midbrain using chick embryos as model. During my postdoctoral research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School Worcester, I investigated the role of sperm small RNAs in transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in the mouse model. My current research interest lies in understanding the epigenetic determinants of cancer development and remission. At present I am focusing on developing sensitive molecular techniques that will help us better detect and understand epigenetic perturbations that underlie the prognosis of multiple cancer types, at the single cell level.
Miguel Munoz Senior Research Technician
I grew up in Iowa, where I attended Buena Vista University. I completed my bachelor’s degree in Cell Biology and proceeded to join a colon cancer research lab at the Mayo Clinic. My work there centered around studying the progression of the disease from healthy colon to polyp and then cancer. It was my first introduction to the fascinating world of cancer epigenetics. Since then, I have since joined the CFCE, where my work revolves around performing a myriad of assays including bulk and single-cell ATAC-Seq, CUT&Tag, single-cell RNA-Seq, and most recently single-cell Multiome (ATAC + Gene Expression).
Sonsoles Liria Veiga Research Technician
Since I studied biology at school molecular biology started to drive my attention. Consequently, I obtained my major in Biotechnology and minor in Expert in the Methodology of Biotechnological Research at Francisco de Vitoria University of Madrid. I concluded my studies doing my degree thesis research in Mariano Barbacid´s laboratory at Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas (CNIO), where I attempted to validate the role of Raf1 and Ddr1 as therapeutic targets in lung cancer. Thanks to this lab experience, I could realize that the basic knowledge scientist acquire by studying the living systems has a potential applicability in diagnosing and providing advanced treatments for diseases. Thus, desiring to help others through my work, I joined CFCE. Here, I will be working more specifically in analyzing epigenetically breast cancer at single cell resolution, which eventually could favour early detection and prevention of this malignancy in the near future.
Carlos Rubio Castillo Bioinformatics Intern & Research Technician
I am a Spanish researcher interested in elucidating the underlaying epigenetics mechanisms involved in cancer disease. I am an undergraduate student and I am studying Biomedicine at Universidad Francisco de Vitoria in Madrid, Spain. I am performing a 6-month internship at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, concretely at CFCE; in order to finish my university degree. Previously, I have worked in neuroscience field: studying how endocannabinoids can reduce neuroinflammation in the context of Alzheimer`s disease mediated by CB2 receptor and improve memory loss. Actually, I am doing epigenetics bulk and single cell assays in tumor samples, such us CHIP-seq, ATAC-seq, RNA-seq... I am really interested in understanding the epigenetics landscape in cancer context and how basic research and translational research can help patients in a clinical situation. Now, I am focus on developing new epigenetic protocol which could hopefully help patients and science community.
Javier Herranz Del Cerro Bioinformatics Intern & Research Technician
My name is Javier, and I am an undergraduate biotechnology student at Francisco de Vitoria University in Madrid. Since I was young, I have been interested in biology and how the human body works. In college, I discovered genetics and epigenetics as well as how complex is Cancer. Nowadays, my interests are data analysis through bioinformatics tools, genetic engineering, genomics and epigenomics. Looking forward to the future I see myself as a biotech´s Data Analyst, being able to analyse wide types of data and reach to a conclusion. I started working on pancreatic cancer at “Hospital 12 de Octubre” in Madrid where I worked generating an inducible Tet-on system based in CRISPRi (dCas-KRAB). There, I discovered that cancer research was my passion. My objective at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), specially at CFCE, is to learn about cancer epigenetics and genomic data analysis. I will be collaborating 50% dry lab and 50% wet lab to master all the lab process since the sample is collected to the data analysis is completed. For this aim, I will be learning about bulk and single-cell ATAC-Seq, Chip-Seq, CUT&Tag and single-cell RNA-Seq.