Marcos Malumbres studied Biology at the Universidad de Navarra and obtained the PhD by the Universidad de León in 1993. He moved to the New York University Medical Center for posdoctoral training and, in 1998, joined M. Barbacid’s lab in the newly created Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) in Madrid. He obtained a Staff Scientist position at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) and was later appointed senior group leader at CNIO in 2004. He moved to the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) as director of the Systems Oncology Program and Cancer Cell Cycle group leader. Dr. Malumbres has authored more than 200 international articles including relevant contributions on the function of key cell cycle regulators and their relevance in cancer therapy. He was elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2016 and received the Gold Medal of the Spanish Association against cancer (AECC) in 2019.

Marcos’ lab focuses on the mechanisms that control cell differentiation and proliferation and their implications in pathology. His group is interested in molecules that drive tumor cell proliferation and the therapeutic opportunities of inhibiting their activity in cancer. Past research in the last years contributed to the approval of inhibitors of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) in breast cancer therapy. Yet, these inhibitors are not efficient in other tumor types and understanding how cells drive the cell cycle in the absence of CDK4/6 activity is a major goal in his lab. Recent efforts in his lab also focus on therapeutic opportunities in genomically unstable tumors, as well as understanding sensitivity or resistance in standard-of-care cancer treatments using genetics, biochemistry and single-cell studies, with the ultimate goal of proposing and testing efficacious therapeutic strategies to be translated to the clinic.