To describe the rules of assembly of microbial communities. To achieve predictive capacity on the function of such communities, given their composition. This will allow determination of the conditions that favor particular combinations of species able to fulfill specific goals in biotechnological, clinical, and ecological scenarios.

Role of cell type specific transcription factors on the development of neuronal circuits in the mammalian cerebral cortex. Implications in mental disease.

Functional analysis of transcriptional repressor DREAM

The main objectives of our laboratory are geared to understand the molecular basis in the pathogenesis of infectious agents and their interaction with the host, as well as to use this knowledge in the development of vaccines that might be effective against viral and parasitic diseases like HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, malaria, leishmaniasis and cancer. As a model system of infectious agent and as a delivery vector for expression of genes of interest, we used vaccinia virus (VV) a member of the poxvirus family.

Our group was established with the aim of studying different aspects of the Biology of toroviruses. These are emergent viruses that cause diarrhea in different animal species and in humans, and nonetheless, remain practically ignored. Specifically, epidemiological studies on the presence of torovirus in Spain had not been performed up to the start of our study. One of the topics that we are especially interested in is the interaction of the virus with the host, which has led us to participate in several collaborations to study this aspect in other viral systems.

Our group study DNA-protein interactions involved in DNA break repair and maintenance using novel approaches based on Single Molecule (SM) techniques. SM manipulation and imaging techniques offer huge potential to investigate DNA break repair reactions in completely new ways, providing information that is inaccessible to conventional ensemble experiments.

Structural biology of virus fibres

Application of state-of-the-art methodolgies in electron microscopy and three-dimensional reconstruction to study viruses, mainly influenza A virus; and macromolecuar aggregates.