I pursued my Bachelor’s Degree in Biotechnology at Universidad de León (2014). As an undergraduate, I carried out my Bachelor’s Final Thesis studying zebrafish germline and was also awarded a summer fellowship by the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC). These experiences enrolled me in cancer research so I followed a Master’s Degree in Cancer Biology at the Universidad de Salamanca (2015), where I worked in a project entitled “Types of cell death and pathways related to antitumoral effects of Edelfosine in Gastric Cancer” for my Master’s Final Thesis.
After that, I moved to Santander and joined the Cell Cycle, Stem Cells, and Cancer laboratory, at IDIVAL, to start my Ph.D. My research focused on the study of the physiological DNA damage-induced differentiation response pathway in stratified epithelia and its dysregulation in Squamous Cancer. During this period, I had the wonderful opportunity of working in laboratories specialized in both cell cycle (Dr. Marcos Malumbres Lab at CNIO) and squamous cancer research (Dr. Thomas E. Carey’s Lab at U. Michigan and Dr. Paolo Dotto’s Lab at U. Lausanne). After obtaining my Ph.D. (2020) in Molecular Biology, from the Universidad de Cantabria, I joined the Department of Microbiology at the Hospital Santa Bárbara (Soria) as a specialist in RT-PCR for SARS-COV2 diagnosis.
In 2021, I had the awesome chance to join the CCCB lab as a post-doctoral fellow and I was awarded a “Juan de la Cierva – Formación” fellowship. I am studying the molecular mechanisms by which the mitotic master regulator PLK1 acts as an oncogene or a tumor suppressor under different tumorigenic situations.