ESR introduction and
outline ESR Project 1
From Santa Anastasia (Zaragoza) in Spain, Javier completed his undergraduate studies in 2017 in Biology at the Autonomous University of Madrid. During his bachelor degree, he had the chance of taking several long-term stays abroad, namely in Jaypee Institute (India), Southern Federal University (Russia) and University of Crete (Greece) where he learnt about other disciplines like Biotechnology or Soil Sciences, thanks to the Erasmus + Programme, among others.
With the help of the Natural History Museum of Crete and, under the supervision of Prof. Mylonas Moysis, he implemented his undergraduate thesis in the invertebrates laboratory, entitled “Shell-morphometrical variations of populations of Metafruticicola sublecta (Gastropoda, Hygromiidae) in Crete Island,” the project in which he gave some insights of the biogeographical distribution of this snail species.
Back in Spain, in 2018, he joined the MSc in Quantitative Biotechnology at the University of Zaragoza, with a final master’s project entitled “Study to the changes to human Apoptosis Inducing Factor (hAIF) interactions with its physiological ligands induced by pathogenic mutations in its codifying gene.” This project let him to delve into calorimetric and spectrophotometric techniques to assess interactions between biomolecules.
This second project produced a growing interest in molecular biology that made him proceed to win this H2020 TRAIN-HEART ESR1 position, supervised by Prof. Gianluigi Condorelli, in Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan, one of the leading institutions in medical and translational research in Europe.
Javier is currently working in the epigenetics laboratory, trying to understand the mechanisms behind lncRNAs regulated upon cardiac hypertrophy, a very common disease in our European societies, with no effective treatments to the date. Very little research has focussed on these lncRNAs in the heart but are targetable molecules that will lead to the establishment of a new generation of drugs based on RNA therapeutics.
Collaborators:
- King's College London (groups of Prof. Mayr, cardiovascular proteomics, and Prof. Giacca, genetic engineering and biotechnology)
- Descin BV (Drs. Bessems, research project management)
