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Lab members

Sara Sdelci, PhD

Group leader

Sara obtained her PhD degree in Biomedicine from the University of Barcelona in 2012, after developing a cell cycle focused project at the IRB (Barcelona). Then, she moved for her postdoctoral studies to CeMM (Vienna), where she became expert in designing elegant reporter strategies and performing chemical and genetic screens. In January 2019 she started her group at the CRG (Barcelona).

sara.sdelci@crg.eu

Lorena Espinar, PhD

Lab MANAGER

Lorena carried out her PhD in Dynamics of genetic circuit regulation in the group of Dr. Jordi G. Ojalvo. During her postdoctoral stay at the University Pompeu Fabra she focused her research in understanding the underlying molecular mechanism of cell-to-cell variability and the influence of epistasis in long-term genome and molecular evolution. Recently she has been working on how gene regulation and genome organization connect to each other. She joined our group as a laboratory technician.

lorena.espinar@crg.eu

Laura Pascual, PhD

Postdoctoral fellow

Laura obtained her PhD degree in Biomedicine from the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) in 2018, where she worked in the group of Sandra Peiró at Vall d ́Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), focusing on chromatin conformation and epigenetics in the context of cancer metastasis. She joined our group as a postdoctoral researcher and her project focus on unveiling the role of chromatin metabolism in triple negative breast cancer, with a particular interest in alteration of chromatin remodelling and gene transcription.

laura.pascual@crg.eu

Marta Garcia-Cao, PhD

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

Marta obtained her PhD in María Blasco ́s lab at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO, Madrid) where she uncovered a novel layer of telomere control: the epigenetic regulation of telomere length. Her interest in the field of oncology led her to join Robert Benezra ́s group at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC, New York), where she studied the role of Inhibitor of Differentiation (ID) factors in tumor progression using mouse models of cancer. Now, her work at Sara Sdelci ́s lab focuses on how oncogenic signals may rewire metabolic enzymes to chromatin

marta.garciacao@crg.eu

Toni Gañez, PhD

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

Toni performed his PhD studies in the group of Ann-Kristin Östlund-Farrants at the Stockholm University, focusing on mRNA processing and ribosomal gene expression regulated by chromatin remodeling complexes.
In 2019, he joined our group as a laboratory technician and more recently was awarded a postdoctoral position. His project focuses on the role of metabolic enzymes in cell cycle regulation.

toni.ganez@crg.eu

Natalia Pardo, PhD

postdoctoral fellow

Natalia graduated in 2018 from the Polytechnic University of Valencia with a degree in Biotechnology, and obtained her MPhil in Genomic Medicine from the University of Cambridge in 2019. She has recently defended her PhD in 2023, in our group and is continuing her research on nuclear roles of metabolic enzymes.

natalia.pardo@crg.eu

Ilir Sheraj, PhD

Bioinformatician

Ilir received his PhD in Biology from the Midddle East Technical University (Ankara) in 2021. He worked as bioinformatician in Sreeparna Banerjee’s Lab on cancer metabolism with a focus on AKR1B10-PPP axis on prognosis of Liver Hepatocellular Carcinoma. He joined our group as bioinformatician and is currently involved in analysing -omics data from multiple sources to dissect and better understand cancer metabolism.

ilir.sheraj@crg.eu

Sara Musa, MSc

technician

Sara completed her BSc from the University of Barcelona (UB) with a degree in biochemistry and then joined our lab to complete here Masters in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Biomedicine from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). Now having completed her degree, she continues in the lab as a research technician.

smusa@crg.eu

Ritobrata Ghose, MRes

PHD STUDENT

Rito performed his BSc and MRes degrees at the Imperial College of London (UK). He started out as a developmental biologist in the field of stem cells, but his curiosity for impending questions in the health sciences brought him to transition to cancer research. Currently, he is a PhD student in our group, studying adaptations in cancer and how cancer metabolism may regulate this process.

rito.ghose@crg.eu

Savvas Kourtis, MSc

PHD STUDENT

Savvas completed his BSc Biotechnology degree at the University of Edinburgh (UK) in 2019 and soon after, joined our group as an ERASMUS+ student. Fascinated by the link between cancer metabolism and epigenetics, he joined our group as a PhD student where is currently investigating the relationship between melanoma aggressiveness and NAD+ salvage enzymes on chromatin.

savvas.kourtis@crg.eu

Júlia Urgel, MSc

PHD STUDENT

Júlia performed her BSc in Human Biology at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and her MSc degree of Multidisciplinary Research in Experimental Sciences at Barcelona Institute for Science and Technology. The complexity of cellular dynamics in cancer and how the cancer cell can reshape and fine-tune gene regulation at many different levels has deepened her interest in cancer research and has increased her motivation for pursuing a PhD. She is a joint PhD student between our lab and the Janic’s Lab (UPF), and she focuses in in vivo functional genomics to unveil novel metabolic vulnerabilities. 

julia.urgel@crg.eu

Alumni

anestis gkanogiannis, bioinformatician
laura garcia, technician
carla aranda, BSc student
Rabia Gül Aydin, MSc student
shubhamay das, MSc student
Chiara Cannatá, Technician
Maria Guirola, Lab manager
debayan datta, Bioinformatician
Milena Ivanisevic, BSc student
evangelina darai, technician