modeling nature from nano to macro
Maria Paz Zafra has been recently granted with a Junior Leader Postdoctoral Fellow La Caixa to initiate her independent research career in Granada (Spain) as a member of the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada.
In 2008, after finishing her Biochemistry degree at University Complutense of Madrid (UCM),
she joined Jose Maria Rojo laboratory at CIB-Margaritas Salas where she studied an immune regulator called ICOS, dysregulated in autoimmune diseases and cancer. Then, she pursued
her PhD in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biomedicine at IIS-Fundación Jiménez Díaz/UCM
in the lab of Victoria Del Pozo (2010-2014). After a short postdoctoral training researching in colorectal cancer with Luisa Botella (CIB), in 2015 she joined Lukas Dow lab (Weill Cornell Medicine, NY, USA) as a postdoctoral fellow to model and study specific cancer-associated mutations. Overall, her scientific career is supported by a high publication record and grant awards that funded and acknowledge her research. She is now determined to continue her research which strikes the importance of the genotype behind the phenotype to unravel a complex disease as cancer. Specifically, she is focused in studying the role of KRAS mutations
in cancer using multiple systems to find the genetic underpins behind this deadly disease that ultimately would guide future treatment strategies.