Our group investigates the transcriptional and epigenetic control of immune in homeostasis and disease, with a particular focus on the molecular mechanisms underlying the actions of nuclear receptors. We use a combination of macrophage-specific knockouts, mouse models of disease, in vivo imaging, and next-generation sequencing technologies combined with bioinformatics approaches.

Our group develops translational research focusing on the study of the pathogenesis and treatment of primary liver cancer, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). In particular, we are interested in better comprehending the crosstalk interactions between cancer and stromal cells from the tumor microenvironment. We apply our results to discover new therapeutic targets and to develop novel therapies that improve tumor progression.

Our laboratory pursues two lines of research with the following objectives: (i) to engineer active nitrogenase in plants (cereals) and yeast, and (ii) to understand the biosynthesis of the nitrogenase iron-molybdenum cofactor.

The Neuroimaging Group investigates the human brain and its functioning. Our objective is to characterize the healthy brain and to study the changes occuring in different neurological conditions. We lead open science initiatives, sharing software, data repositories and contributing to standards and good practice guidelines in neuroimaging.

The Neuroscience-inspired Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NAIR) group, led by Pablo Lanillos, focuses on transforming our brain knowledge into technologies of the future. On the one hand, by investigating how humans process and integrate information from the senses to generate behaviors, new AI and machine learning algorithms are developed to improve the perception, control and decision-making of robotic systems.

How can one genome encode for so many different cell types and functions? All cells of a multicellular organism (like us humans) share the same genome, but there are as many epigenomes as cell types. In our group, our goal is to understand how the epigenomic encoding allows to derive so many cell identities from a single genome, and how new cell identities arise in cancer and immune-mediated diseases. For this, we integrate Big Bio-data, develop new computational biology approaches and interpretative models.

At the Applied Microbial Genomics Unit, we work on the applications of whole-genome sequencing as a research, surveillance, and diagnostics tool for bacterial infections. We employ advanced population-genomics approaches to characterise the genetic basis of bacterial phenotypes and adaptation, with a particular focus on antibiotic resistance, and use genomic surveillance approaches to study the epidemiology of bacterial pathogens.

The cellular interior is not a mere Brownian soup of molecules; it is rather an exquisitely structured entity organized into hierarchical levels. Knowing how proteins assemble into different layers of organization, is thus fundamental to understanding the functioning of the cell. We recently demonstrated that proteins are a few mutations, sometimes even one mutation away, to form infinite polymers –aka supramolecular assemblies– (Garcia-Seisdedos, et al. Nature 2017, Empereur-Mot, Garcia-Seisdedos, et al Sci Data 2019, Garcia-Seisdedos, et al PNAS 2022).