My expertise in understanding the molecular mechanisms leading to organ regeneration was recognized with the prestigious ERC-Starting grant in 2014 and recently with an ERC Consolidator Grant (call 2020). After receiving a Ramon y Cajal Fellowship (first ranked candidate, 100/100 points) I became Junior Group Leader (2015) at IBEC. I received 9 M€ in funded projects and published 64 papers  including journals as Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Cell Metabolism, Nature Materials,  among others. My h-index is 32. I gave >150 invited talks and participated and > 200 outreach activities. I am devoted to translating my findings into the clinics relaying on collaborations with world-recognized clinicians and basic scientists. I combined my research activity being Deputy Director at the CMRB (2011-13) and IBEC (2018-today).

Research interests

My fascination to understand how tissues develop have helped me to start revealing early programs that fail when these get disease. Making use of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) I can lead my team to formulate these fundamental questions with a particular focus in heart and kidney tissues. To achieve this goal, we develop new tools and methodologies, including the generation of hPSCs cell lines, the derivation of hPSCs-organoids and the formulation of biomimetic materials/bioengineering strategies emulating the tissue milieu. Our research is focused in understanding how systemic conditions (i.e., diabetes, hyperlipidemia, among others) and physical constrains (i.e., changes in extracellular matrix composition and stiffness,among others) lead to disease in kidney and heart tissues. More recently, and due to COVID19 outbreak, we have transfer our knowledge and tools to target SARS-CoV-2 infection in our micro-engineered organ-like cultures revealing in the utility of these systems to advance our understanding on SARS-CoV-2 host interactions and to identify therapeutic compounds for COVID19.