Dr Aurora Pujol received her MD from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Heidelberg/ German Cancer Research Center. She trained in Human Genetics at the IGBMC, Strasbourg, generating and characterizing mouse models for a rare neurometabolic disorder, adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD), combined with residency in Medical Genetics at the Louis Pasteur Hospital. In 2005, she became ICREA Professor and Director of the Neurometabolic Diseases Lab at IDIBELL. In 2017 she obtained the Certification in Laboratory Genomics by the American Board ABMGG, at the NIH, USA. Her lab is a member of the Spanish Network of Rare Diseases CIBERER, and the Undiagnosed Diseases  International Network of NIH (UDNI). Dr Pujol serves at prestigious Editorial Boards, and at the European Society of Human Genetics scientific committee. 

Research interests

Our mission  is to improve disease management of rare brain disorders through precision medicine. This spans the whole spectrum from genomic diagnosis to disease-modifying treatments. A first research line revolves around adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD),  made popular by the movie “Lorenzo’s Oil”. We are integrating multiomic approaches to gain insights into pathomechanisms  for drug target and biomarker identification. These involve redox, metabolic and mitochondrial homeostasis. Tailored preclinical tests yielded four licensed patents, four phase II/III clinical trials, and four Orphan Drug Designations. A second research line applies clinical and functional genomics for solving undiagnosed  cases and for novel disease and gene discovery.  We are modeling metabolic brain disease using iPS-derived brain organoids to advance the knowledge on pathobiology while identifying therapeutic strategies to serve our patients.