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Ángel Raya

Ángel Raya

Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica de Bellvitge

Life & Medical Sciences

Ángel Raya is an ICREA Research Professor at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL). 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, until 2015. From 2014 to 2019 he was 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

– Tadevosyan K, … Raya A. 2021, ‘Engineering and Assessing Cardiac Tissue Complexity‘, Int J Mol Sci, 22, 3, 1479.

– Salas A, … Raya A, Veiga A, Garcia-Arumi J. 2021, ‘Cell therapy with hiPSC-derived RPE cells and RPCs prevents visual function loss in a rat model of retinal degeneration‘, Mol Ther-Meth Clin Dev, 20, 688 – 702.

– Escriba R, Ferrer-Lorente R, Raya A. 2021, ‘Inborn errors of metabolism: Lessons from iPSC models‘, Rev Endocr Metab Disord, 22:1189-1200

– Mateos-Aierdi AJ, … Raya A, Naldaiz-Gastesi N, López de Munain A. 2021, ‘Patient-specific iPSC-derived cellular models of LGMDR1’, Stem Cell Res 53:102333.

– Carola G, … Raya A*, Consiglio A*. 2021, ‘Parkinson’s disease patient-specific neuronal networks carrying the LRRK2 G2019S mutation unveil early functional alterations that predate neurodegeneration’, npj Parkinson Dis 7(1):55.

– Ruiz de Garibay G, … Raya A … Pujana MA. 2021, ‘Altered regulation of BRCA1 exon 11 splicing is associated with breast cancer risk in carriers of BRCA1 pathogenic variants’, Hum Mutat, 42(11): 1488-1502.

– Sanchez-Botet A, … Raya A, Clotet J, Ribeiro MP. C. 2021, ‘Atypical cyclin P regulates cancer cell stemness through activation of the WNT pathway‘, Cell Oncol, 44(6): 1273-1286.

– Duarri A, … Raya A, Veiga A, Monés J. 2021, ‘Transplantation of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Retinal Pigment Epithelium in a Swine Model of Geographic Atrophy’, Int J Mol Sci, 22(19):10497.

– Ferrer-Lorente R, … Raya A. 2021, ‘Cationic Carbosilane Dendrimers Prevent Abnormal alpha-Synuclein Accumulation in Parkinson’s Disease Patient-Specific Dopamine Neurons‘, Biomacromolecules, 22, 11, 4582 – 4591.


Selected research activities

Invited speaker
IDIBAPS Seminar Series, Barcelona (online), Sep
Viladecans contra el càncer, Viladecans, Oct
Debate ‘Quimeras hombre/mono’, Royal European Academy of Doctors, Barcelona, Oct

Co-organizer
Shenzen Bay Laboratory/IDIBELL Joint Academic Symposium, Shenzen/Barcelona (online), Dec

ICREA Memoir 2021