Our staff
During 2009 the following 7 PIs will join the IMPPC making a total of 9 groups. We spoke to the ones already here and those who will be joining us during the year.
Marcus Buschbeck
After graduating Marcus spent some time in Dr Steve Watson’s laboratory at the University of Oxford, where he became interested in protein kinase signaling. He went on to do his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Dr. Axel Ullrich at the Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie, Germany. He moved to Barcelona to undertake his postdoctoral work in the group of Dr. Luciano Di Croce at the CRG. In 2008 he was recruited by the IMPPC to start a new group working on Cancer Epigenetics. His current focus is on understanding the role of a histone variant in cancer. Dr. Buschbeck has been awarded several prestigious grants and published 11 papers.
It is a great feeling for me to work at a newly opened institute; apart from the pleasure of having brand new facilities and equipment, it offers the unique opportunity to contribute to the definition and style of the organization.
The IMPPC is the latest addition to Barcelona scientific arena, which in the amazingly short time of little more than five years, has become an international reference for excellence in science.
Pepita Giménez-Bonafé
Pepita received her doctorate from the University of Barcelona where her work centered on the remodeling of chromatin in sperm during spermatogenesis. Her post-doctoral work was carried out at the Prostate Centre at Vancouver General Hospital, where she specialized in the study of aspects of the acquisition of chemo-resistant phenotypes during prostate cancer treatments. On her return to Catalonia she joined the University of Barcelona as professor of physiology in the Department of Physiological Sciences (Bellvitge Health Sciences Campus, IDIBELL). She is also Head of the research group on chemo-resistance and cancer. Dr. Giménez-Bonafé will be joining the IMPPC as a Group Leader in late 2009.
The IMPPC is the ideal place to continue my group’s research into chemoresistance and cancer. We intend to deepen our understanding of the molecular processes that lead to chemoresistance in ovarian cancer and we hope this will lead to the discovery of molecular markers that will help predict the appearance of this illness and also apply more personalized treatments thus avoiding the resistance that often occurs in today’s generalized therapies.
Ana Rojas
Ana is a Molecular Biologist by training with a strong expertise in Bioinformatics and computational sciences. She completed her PhD at the Universidad San Pablo in Madrid went on to continue training at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, University of California in San Diego and The Burnham Institute where she worked with leading researchers such as Professors Doolittle, McClelland, Godzik, and Reed. She was awarded a prestigious NASA fellowship that constituted her transition work to Bioinformatics. She returned to Spain in late 2003. In 2005, she was awarded a Marie Curie Reintegration grant for two years. In 2008 she was appointed as head of the bioinformatics Unit at the IMPPC.
The Catalonia region of Spain is a place where things are happening, especially, in Bio-medicine. IMPPC could not be more happily located.
I do believe that predictive medicine will become a fact instead of a promise, given the wealth of data and the current technological developments. However, there is still a long way to go, but the IMPPC is aiming to make things happen. I am both excited and confident that, from the computational side of Biology, we will contribute to making this change.
Mayka Sanchez
Mayka did her Ph.D at the University of Barcelona, where she studied the genetic condition Hereditary Hemocromatosis. In 2002 she joined Prof. Dr. Matthias W. Hentze’s group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany and in 2005 she moved to the Department of Pediatric Oncology, Haematology, and Immunology, where she worked under Prof. Dr. Martina Muckenthaler, also in Heidelberg. In 2007 she became a postdoctoral fellow at the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit- European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and University of Heidelberg. In 2008 she was appointed as a group leader at the IMPPC.
As a junior group leader, I am very excited about starting my first laboratory at the IMPPC; a dynamic research centre working on the predictive medicine of cancer. After seven years in Germany I feel I am ready to contribute back to Spanish science in response to all the support that my country has given to me in education and fellowships. The IMPPC represents an ideal center to investigate towards achieving successful prevention of cancer in patients with iron overload diseases, one of the main goals of my lab.
Eduard Serra
Eduard studied biology at the University of Barcelona and the University of Manchester. His Ph.D was completed in the Genetics Department of the Hospital Clínic and the Institut de Recerca Oncològica (IRO) in Barcelona. His thesis dealt with the genetics and cell biology of neurofibromas; benign tumors of the peripheral nervous system, which in multiple form are associated with Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). He contributed to the understanding of mutational mechanisms generating these tumors and to the identification of Schwann cells as those carrying a double inactivation of the NF1 gene. On moving to The Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, he joined a multidisciplinary team working on the Alpha Project, describing the quantitative behavior of a prototypical yeast signal transduction pathway crucial to pheromone sensing. After completing a second post-doc on NF1 in Barcelona, Eduard became a FIS-researcher in IDIBELL, his group studying cancer and quantitative genetics, cancer syndromes and the yeast as a model system. He joined the IMPPC in January 2009.
I think we are living one of the most exciting and challenging moments in biomedical research, where the completion of the Human Genome Project has fostered a great number of technological advances and a type of “Cambrian explosion” of possibilities for approaching the study of the complexity of life.
The IMPPC is well aware of this moment and has been conceived and built on the solid foundations of genomics and epigenomics to respond to the challenge of creating a more predictive and personalized medicine of cancer. The aim of the institute fits perfectly on my research interests: genetic variation and cancer. The IMPPC has been created as a modern research institute that gives special support to starting investigators, helping them to take off in the competitive world of biomedical research. It is a great pleasure to be part of it.
Lauro Sumoy
Lauro (B.Sc. Biology, University of Barcelona, 1989 and Ph.D. Biomedical Science, University of Connecticut, 1994) began his scientific career studying development; from 1989 to1994 at the Upholt Laboratory, University of Connecticut, Farmington,USA, and from 1994 to 1998 at the Kimelman Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, USA. In 1998 he moved to the Estivill Laboratory at the Institut de Recerca Oncológica (IRO), Barcelona, where he started studying genes relevant to human disease. In recent years, he has specialized in high content genomic technologies and the use of DNA microarrays. From 2001 he was Head of the Microarray Unit at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona. In 2008 he was appointed Head of the Genomics and Bioinformatics Platform at the IMPPC.
Working at the IMPPC means an opportunity to apply my knowledge in Genomics to the study of the predisposition of each individual to develop cancer. At the IMPPC we want to carry out cutting edge research, using genomics to study cancer and having access to the biobank will make us more competitive and more productive.
Fumiichiro Yamamoto
Dr. Yamamoto received a Ph.D. in Developmental and Cellular Biology from the Osaka City University, Japan. After postdoctoral work at SUNY at Stony Brook, he became the Head of the Molecular Biology Laboratory at The Biomembrane Institute in Seattle. He held a joint appointment as a Research Associate Professor at the Department of Pathobiology, School of Public Health, University of Washington. After a short stint at the California Institute of Biological Research, he joined the Burnham Institute in 1995. At Burnham he has collaborated with Manuel Perucho’s Laboratory on epigenetic events involved in tumorigenesis.
Dr. Yamamoto received international recognition when he and colleagues elucidated the molecular genetic basis of the three major alleles (A, B, and O) of the blood group ABO system in 1990 work which is now standard content of biology textbooks.
In America, much money is spent on big research projects where individuality is depreciated in the name of teamwork. In Europe, including Spain, however, the research projects by individual scientists are well respected. Although this tendency is faltering, the fact that the IMPPC has just been created with the financial support from the Catalan government proves that the spirit of individuality is still alive. I believe that there is ample room for the existence and prosperity of the IMPPC so far as the research is unique and original. I also believe that I will be able to contribute more to the scientific and medical discovery here, rather than spending much time on the administration and bureaucracy that are often associated with large institutions.