Miguel Chillón

Miguel Chillón

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Life & Medical Sciences

Born in Barcelona in 1966. PhD in Genetics at Hospital Duran i Reynals, Universitat de Barcelona (1994). Award in Human Genetics by the Spanish Association of Human Genetics (1995). HHMI postdoctoral fellow on Gene Therapy for Cystic Fibrosis, at the Internal Medicine Dept, University of Iowa, USA (1994-97). EMBO fellow in Genethon III (Evry, France) (1997-99) on viral vectors for Gene Therapy. Postdoctoral fellow on Gene Therapy (2000-2001) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). ICREA Research Professor at the UAB since 2001. Director of the Vector Production Unit, since 2004, and Assistant Professor of the UAB since 2005. He has published more than 80 papers, generated 13 patents, and co-founded 2 spin-offs in biotechnology: NanoTherapix (2009) and Kogenix Therapeutics (2016). Dr Chillon is currently the Chair of the ATMP platform of EATRIS, a strategic European ERIC entity, as well as the coordinator of the Advance Therapy Program (composed by 23 groups) of VHIR.

Research interests

Medicine still has many challenges to solve especially on complex diseases where a large number of both, genetic and environmental factors, are involved. Among them, aging-associated diseases and rare disorders have attracted attention because there are no effective curative treatments for them. Some of these diseases affecting the nervous system, which in addition is difficult to access and to manipulate with classical pharmacological treatments. To address these problems we have focused our research interests on three main objectives: (1) gene therapy strategies for diseases affecting the nervous system, such as rare neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disorders; (2) gene therapy strategies using chronokines for cognitive decline and dementia; and (3) development of more efficient and less immunogenic viral vectors. To determine the therapeutic potential of our research strategies we work with animal models and well as with iPS-derived neurons from biopsies taken from patients

Selected publications

- Roig-Soriano J, Griñán-Ferré C, Espinosa-Parrilla JF, Abraham CR, Bosch A, Pallas M & Chillon M 2022, 'AAV-mediated expression of secreted and transmembrane alpha Klotho isoforms rescues relevant aging hallmarks in senescent SAMP8 mice', Aging Cell, 21(4):e13581.

- Edo Á, Calvo-Barreiro L, Eixarch H, Bosch A, Chillón M & Espejo C 2022, 'Therapeutic Effect of IL-21 Blockage by Gene Therapy in Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis', Neurotherapeutics, 19(5):1617-1633.

- Leal-Julià M, Vilches JJ, Onieva A, Verdés S, Sánchez A, Chillón M, Navarro X & Bosch A 2022, "Proteomic quantitative study of dorsal root ganglia and sciatic nerve in type 2 diabetic mice", Molecular Metabolism, 55, 101408.

- Verdes S, Herrando-Grabulosa M, Leal-Julia M, Onieva A, Roig-Soriano J, Gaja-Capdevila N, Martin-Masegosa V, Hernandez N, Chillon M, Navarro X &  Bosch A 2022, 'Gene Therapy for ALS by Specifically Overexpressing a Pleiotropic Chronokine, Secreted alpha-Klotho, in Skeletal Muscles', Molecular Therapy, 30, 4, 570 - 570.

Selected research activities

Patent (US-63/330.684): Treatment of neuromuscular diseases via gene therapy that expresses klotho protein
Patent (EP22382421.0): Nucleic acid constructs and vectors for podocyte specific expression
Patent (EP22383171.0): Secreted splicing variant of Klotho for extending lifespan
Patent (EP22383173.6): Secreted splicing variant of Klotho for treating muscle disorders