The Integrative Biology research group seeks to identify general biological principles that allow the development of predictive mechanistic models. The work strategy combines the development of theoretical models and computational tools with experiments and analysis of high-throughput data.

As feature sizes decrease, their properties become more influenced by interface behavior, giving rise to novel exotic phenomena. To unlock the potential herein enclosed, our team possesses a broad expertise in characterizing and modeling surfaces and interfaces. Specifically, we focus on understanding their morphology, structure, and non-equilibrium properties across various systems, ranging from proteins and DNA to simple organic molecules and complex inorganic solids.

Development of novel targeting molecule-drug conjugates for the selective drug delivery of drugs to tumor cells

The research group led by Dr. Ferrándiz is dedicated to understanding the various mechanisms responsible for chromosome segregation and exploring the causes of aneuploidy in cancer cells. They mainly study membrane dynamics during cell division to maintain genomic stability.

The main interest of the Pharmacogenomics and Tumor Biomarkers Group is understanding how genomic variation modifies drug treatment response, with the ultimate goal of using this knowledge to design more specific drug treatments. In cancer, drug therapy failure is a major clinical problem and developing safer and more effective anticancer drug treatment strategies is urgently needed. Our top priority is improving the survival and quality of life of cancer patients.

We study host-pathogen interactions, with a special focus on Rickettsia. Rickettsia includes obligate intracellular pathogens that replicate in the host cell cytosol, where bacteria can polymerize host actin for motility and cell-to-cell dissemination. Despite Rickettsia are spreading worldwide and cause life-threatening infections in humans, the infection biology of these pathogens is poorly understood, mainly due to their genetic intractability.

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.

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.