Ángel Raya

Centre de Medicina Regenerativa de Barcelona (CMRB)

Life & Medical Sciences

Ángel Raya is an ICREA Research Professor at the Center of Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona (CMRB). He obtained his MD in 1990 from the University of Valencia, Spain and a PhD degree from the same university in 1995 for studies carried out at the Department of Physiology and at the Department of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. He pursued postdoctoral training at the Instituto de Investigaciones Citológicas (currently, Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe) in Valencia, from 1995-2000. He then was a Research Associate (2000-2004) and a Senior Research Associate (2004-2006) in the Gene Expression Laboratory of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA. He returned to Spain in 2006 and was the Scientific Coordinator at the CMRB until 2009, when he joined the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) as Group Leader of the Control of Stem Cell Potency group. In 2014 he was appointed Director at CMRB.


Research interests

Our research work aims to understand the tissue, cellular and molecular mechanisms that determine the regenerative response in certain species of vertebrates, as well as the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that control cellular reprogramming. This phenomenon provides a link between the traditional study of epimorphic regeneration and the induced pluripotency strategies of regenerative medicine.

Selected publications

– Tekeli I, Aujard I, Trepat X, Jullien L, Raya A* & Zalvidea D* 2016, ‘Long-term in vivo single cell lineage tracing of deep structures using three-photon activation’, Light, Sci & Appl, 5, e16084.

– Prieto J, Leon M, Ponsoda X, Sendra R, Bort R, Ferrer-Llorente R, Raya A, López-García C & Torres J 2016, ‘Early ERK1/2 activation promotes DRP1-dependent mitochondrial fission necessary for cell reprogramming’, Nat Commun 7, 11124.

– Vassena R, Heindryckx B, Peco R, Pennings G, Raya A, Sermon K, Veiga A 2016, ‘Genome engineering through CRISPR/Cas9 technology in the human germline and pluripotent stem cells’, Hum Reprod Update, 22, 4, 411-9.

– Riera M, Fontrodona L, Albert S, Ramirez DM, Seriola A, Salas A, Muñoz Y, Ramos D, Villegas-Perez MP, Zapata MA, Raya A, Ruberte J, Veiga A & Garcia-Arumi J 2016, ‘Comparative study of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) as a treatment for retinal dystrophies’, Mol Therapy – Meth & Clin Dev, 3, 16010.

– Capellera-Garcia S, Pulecio J, Dhulipala K, Siva K, Rayon-Estrada V, Singbrant S, Sommarin MNE, Walkley CR, Soneji S, Karlsson G, Raya A, Sankaran VG, Flygare J 2016, ‘Defining the minimal factors required for erythropoiesis through direct lineage conversion’, Cell Rep, 15, 11, 2550-62.

– Bedford-Guaus SJ et al. 2016, ‘Expression of the T85A mutant of zebrafish aquaporin 3b improves post-thaw survival of cryopreserved early mammalian embryos’, Zygote, 24, 6, 839-847.

– Bedford-Guaus S et al. 2016, ‘Molecular markers of putative spermatogonial stem cells in the domestic cat’, Reprod Dom Anim, 51 (Suppl. 3): 1–10.

– Pulecio J et al. 2016, ‘Direct conversion of fibroblasts to megakaryocyte progenitors’, Cell Rep, 17, 3, 671 – 683.


Selected research activities

Invited Speaker

SFTCG Annual Congress, Marseille 03/16

ESHG Congress, Barcelona 05/16

Joint ESGCT/ISSCR Meeting, Florence 10/16

iForum Meeting, Paris 10/16

9th Guangzhou International Conference on Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, Guangzhou (China) 12/16