About me
I hold a Bachelor's and a Doctorate in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Córdoba. After completing my doctoral thesis, I worked for 18 years in the United States. The first 13 years were at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the following 5 years at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2013, I was appointed an Ikerbasque Research Professor, and since then I have worked at the Biobizkaia Health Research Institute, where I lead the Immunopathology Group.
My research focuses primarily on the study of cell surface activating and inhibitory receptors, with particular emphasis on how they regulate the effector functions of NK cells and on the search for new strategies to increase their anti-tumor activity. We work with cytokine-induced memory-like NK cells (CIMLs), which are characterized by enhanced effector function against tumor cells and a longer lifespan. Currently, my group and clinical collaborators are working on advanced therapies based on adoptive CIML NK cell transfer for the treatment of acute leukemias.
I also work on the CD300 receptor family. We have discovered that these molecules recognize lipids exposed on the surface of infected, cancerous, and dead cells, and regulate biological processes such as cell activation, inflammatory cytokine production, and phagocytosis. We are studying the role of the CD300 receptor family in the pathogenesis of certain diseases, such as HIV infection and allergies.
