Born in Avilés, Asturias, in 1974. Biochemist by University of Salamanca (1997) and PhD in Medicine (Hematology) by the same University in 2002, under the supervision of Prof. Alberto Orfao and Prof. Jesús San Miguel. Postdoctoral training in stem cell biology (Mick Bhatia Laboratory, London, ON, Canada; 2002-2005) and in childhood leukemia (Mel Greaves Laboratory, London, UK; 2005-2007). In 2007, I was appointed Director of the Andalusian Stem Cell Bank, and was leading my own lab at CIBM (Granada, Spain) until July 2011 when I moved to GENyO (Granada, Spain) as Principal Investigator. In June 2013 I was appointed ICREA Research Professor and Research Director of The Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute-Campus Clínic, Barcelona, Spain.

Research interests

1.- Modeling Infant Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia MLL-AF4+.
2.- Sarcomagenesis models based on mesenchymal stem cells.
3.- Leukemic cell-niche environment interactions.
4.- Deciphering the intrinsic determinants and signaling pathways underlying hematopoietic-mesenchymal specification from human PSCs.
5.- Adoptive T-cell-based CAR immunotherapy for B-cell ALL and AML.