Members

Group Leader

Guillermo Velasco

Guillermo studied Biology and obtained his PhD (1997) at the School of Biology of Universidad Complutense de Madrid. After defending his PhD, he got an EMBO long-term fellowship to work in Philip Cohen’s laboratory at the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit (Dundee, Scotland) on a project aimed at studying the regulation and of the Rho-activated protein kinase (ROCK). In 1999 he got a position as Assistant Teacher at the School of Chemistry of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and since 2003 he is an Associated Professor of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. In 2001 he started a line of research aimed at investigating the mechanisms underlying cannabinoid antitumoral action as well as at optimizing the potential clinical utilization of these agents in cancer therapies.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Mar Lorente

Mar Lorente obtained her PhD at the Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas (CSIC) of Madrid and after that, she joined our laboratory with a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellowship. Now, Mar works as a postdoctoral researcher and she focuses her job in the study of the mechanisms associated to the resistance of the tumoral cells to the treatment by cannabinoids in order to improve the therapies against brain tumors and, particularly, gliomas.

Kunzangla Bhutia

Kunzangla completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Biotechnology, Chemistry and Zoology from Christ University Bangalore, India (2010-2013) and her Master’s Degree in Biotechnology from Pondicherry University, India (2014-2016). During her Master, she had the opportunity to work in different ends of Molecular biology spectrum including protein-protein interaction and protein functional studies.

Predoctoral Researchers

Elena Tovar

Elena graduated in Biotechnology at the Polytechnic University of Madrid in 2018. That year she began the Master’s Degree in Neuroscience at the Complutense University of Madrid, which led her to join Pilar Sánchez’s research group at the Carlos III Health Institute, and start research on brain tumors as part of her Master’s Thesis on the analysis of EGFR regulation in gliomas. She is currently a PhD student in our group and her work is focused on the design of new therapeutic strategies based on the combination of different drugs for the treatment of gliomas.

Paola Martín

Paola has a degree in Biology from the University of La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife (2018). She then moved to Madrid to study Master of Sanitary Biology. During this period, she did her internship and final Master’s thesis in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biomedicine in the lab of Guillermo Velasco and Mar Lorente, where she worked with a pseudokinase family of protein – Tribbles. Currently, she has joined the group thanks to a contract generated by the CAM-UCM, where she continues to study TRIB3 in the context of breast cancer.

Óscar Gutiérrez

Óscar graduated in Biology from the Complutense University of Madrid (2020), specializing in Health Biology. He did the external practices and the Final Degree Project at the Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas Margarita Salas, in a project that involved the synthesis of bioactive peptides for the treatment of multiple sclerosis and post-traumatic stress disorder. He then did his Master’s thesis in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biomedicine in the group of Guillermo Velasco. Currently, he’s a PhD student in the group of Guillermo and Mar, working in the role of TRIB3 protein in fatty liver diseases and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Adrián Sanz

Adrián graduated in Biology from Universidad de Alcalá in 2021, after carrying out his Final Degree Project in National Cancer Research Center, where he studied the role of P70S6K and CDK4 kinases in response to paclitaxel in Triple Negative Breast Cancer. Then, he studied a Master’s degree in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biomedicine in Complutense University of Madrid, whose Master’s thesis performed in our lab. Currently, his work focuses on analyzing several therapies against Glioblastoma, as wells as their mechanism of action.

Edurne Mugica

Edurne graduated in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology degree at the University of the Basque Country in 2020 and performed her Final Degree Project at Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience focusing on the effect that polyphenolic compounds exert upon Alzheimer’s Disease. Later on she specialized in Neuroscience at the Autonomous University of Madrid and carried out her Master’s Thesis at the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Centre. She is currently hired by the San Carlos Clinical Hospital’s Healthcare Research Institute with a Investigo grant, and her work focuses on developing therapeutic strategies that allow tumor microenvironment modifications in different subtypes of glioblastoma.

Laboratory Technicians

Nélida Salvador

Nélida graduated in Biology at Universidad de León in 2001 and finished her post graduate studies in “Molecular Biology and Biotechnology”, obtaining the DEA at the University of León in 2005. Her professional career began in the department of Cell Biology of the company BIOMAR Microbial Technologies located in León, where she worked for 8 years (2001-2008). In February 2008 she joined the company Projech, Science to Technology, S.L with a Torres Quevedo technologist contract. From January 2011 to May 2014, with a contract associated to the Subprogram Technical support staff- MICINN, she specialized in Mass-spectrometry techniques at the Protein Unit of the Biochemistry Service of the Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal (Madrid). She became a member of our group in 2016, where she takes part in several projects as Superior Technician.