Members

Group Leader

Cristina Sánchez

Cristina graduated in Biology at Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1994. She started her scientific career as an undergraduate student at the laboratory of Dr. Ramos and Dr. Fernández-Ruiz (School of Medicine, Complutense University), where she first took contact with the field of cannabinoid research. Once graduated, she moved to Dr. Guzmán’s laboratory (School of Biology, Complutense University), where she studied the effect of cannabinoids on lipid and carbohydrate intermediate metabolism first and on cancer cell proliferation later. She obtained her PhD with Honors in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2000. During her postdoc at Dr. Piomelli’s laboratory (University of California Irvine, 2000-2003) she studied the involvement of another group of bioactive lipids (lysophosphatidic acid and related compounds) on pain initiation. In 2004, Cristina returned to Spain with a “Ramón y Cajal” contract (aimed at repatriating Spanish researchers from abroad) and she started coordinating a new line of research within Dr. Guzmán’s laboratory.

The goal of her research group is to understand the role of the endocannabinoid system in breast cancer, and to exploit this knowledge to provide new therapeutic targets and options for the treatment of this pathology, as well as new patient screening tools (with prognostic and predictive value).

Cristina is the current President of the Spanish Cannabinoid Research Society (SEIC), Secretary and founding member of the Spanish Observatory on Medical Cannabis.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Eduardo Pérez

Eduardo graduated in Biochemistry at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2002. He obtained his PhD (Extraordinary Prize) from the Biomedical Research Institute (IIBM), Biology of Cancer department in 2007. During his PhD work, he investigated the role of endoglin, a TGFbeta co-receptor, as a suppressor of malignancy during carcinogenesis. He joined our lab in October 2009. He is now focused on the study of cannabinoid receptors and breast cancer using, as a major tool, mouse models. In 2020 he became an Associate Professor, position that he currently holds.

Predoctoral Researchers

Marta Seijo

Marta graduated in Biology at Universidad de Vigo in 2016. Then, in the academic course 2016-2017 she did her Master’s Degree in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biomedicine at the Complutense University of Madrid. During this period, she joined our group to perform her Master’s Thesis. Currently, she is studying Cannabis sativa whole-plant extracts as better therapeutic tools than pure cannabinoids in preclinical models of breast cancer with a UCM predoctoral grant.

María Rubert

María graduated in Biochemistry at Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2020 and, a year later, she finished her Master’s Degree in Immunology Research at the same university. Throughout her academic training she has received the Best Record award and the Extraordinary award of the degree on Biochemistry of the academic year 2019-2020 and, in addition, she has been recognized as one of the best national records in the National Ranking of Biochemistry awarded by the Spanish Society of Academic Excellence (SEDEA). María joined our group to perform her Final Degree Project and Master’s Thesis. Currently she is doing her PhD Thesis with a UCM predoctoral grant and is studying the role of the endocannabinoid system in the tumor microenvironment in breast cancer.