Zebrabiores

Research area: Zebrafish models for rare diseases

Alba Pensado López graduated in Biology in the University of Santiago (USC, 2016), developing her degree final project on the study of molecular markers of prostate cancer. She completed her Master's studies in Biomedical Research at the USC (2017), having focused her work on the optimization of genome editing strategies (e.g. CRISPR/Cas9) of candidate genes in zebrafish for the modeling of human diseases, under the supervision of Prof. Laura Sánchez Piñón (Department of Zoology, Genetics and Physical Anthropology) and Prof. Ángel Carracedo Álvarez (Genomics and Bioinformatics, CiMUS).

She developed her PhD within the framework of the Molecular Medicine Program (USC, 2022), with Prof. Sánchez Piñón and Dr. Catarina Allegue Toscano (Genomics and Bioinformatics, CiMUS) being funded by the Predoctoral Grants of the Xunta de Galicia. During this period, Dr. Pensado developed and characterized various mutant lines of zebrafish for the study of candidate genes for neurodevelopmental diseases, work for which her PhD received an international and outstanding cum laude mention. Likewise, she gained experience in establishing tumor models and evaluating toxicity, biodistribution and efficacy of therapeutic compounds in zebrafish. Additionally, she did a 3-month stay in the group 'Regeneration and Development of Vertebrates' (i3S, Porto, Portugal) in which she gained experience in the application of ATAC-seq and ChIP-seq for the study of human diseases.

Dr. Pensado has extensive experience in the teaching field, having accumulated more than 180 hours of teaching (Genetics and Veterinary Genetics, Degree in Biochemistry and Veterinary Medicine, respectively), she supervised a module of non-clinical practices, a master's thesis, a final degree project and co-directed another final degree project. She gave two training courses as a guest in the Molecular Biology and Cytogenetics module (Clinical and Biomedical Laboratory, CIFP Politécnico de Lugo). In addition, she has been invited as an external expert to teach the subject 'Animal models applied to human research' during the 2023/2024 academic year in the Masters in Genomics and Genetics (USC).

She has participated in international, national and regional conferences and has been invited as a speaker to various cycles of talks and scientific conferences. Her scientific production has focused mainly on tumor models in zebrafish using the xenotransplantation technique and evaluation of the effectiveness of gene therapies, nanoparticles and immunomodulatory compounds, with special attention to macrophages and the tumor microenvironment.

She has participated as a research member of the Zebraglio2020 project, promoted by Dr. Pedro Reimunde Figueira (HULA), whose objective is the development of human glioblastoma models in zebrafish for the evaluation of new antitumor compounds (chemotherapy, immunotherapy and nanomedicine). A publication derived from this collaboration received the second prize for the best scientific publication of 2021 (Official Medical College of Lugo). In 2022 she joined as a research member in the European project 'MEFISTO-Meniscal functionalized scaffold to prevent knee Osteoarthritis oncet after meniscectomy', funded by Horizon2020, for the in vitro evaluation of the immunotoxicity and anti-inflammatory efficacy of various nanoparticles, developing her research at Humanitas Clinical and Research Center, under the supervision of Prof. Paola Allavena in the Cellular Immunology Lab. At this same institution, in April 2023, Dr. Pensado joined the project 'Precision immunotherapy for cancer treatment: understanding resistance to therapy, improving patient selection, and designing novel therapeutic strategies' as a postdoctoral researcher.

In November 2023, Dr. Pensado joined the Department of Oncology of the Biomedical Research Institute of A Coruña (INIBIC) as a postdoctoral researcher with funding from the Postdoctoral Grants of the Xunta de Galicia, within the framework of the ‘Personalized Cell Therapy with anti-EGFR CAR-M Myeloid Cells for Solid Tumors’ financially supported by various regional grants.