"Mitochondrial DNA variation and stress responses"

About:

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variants influence the risk of rare and late-onset human diseases, but the reasons for this are poorly understood. Interestingly, the same variant exerts a great variability in disease penetrance in each individual, which suggests the existence of a complex system that does not necessarily imply the dysfunction of the energy synthesis. In here, through the combination of multi-omics approaches on several human models, we will describe how variations in oxidative phosphorylation system capacity (OXPHOS) driven by the mtDNA variants activate different types of stress responses and their possible role in mitochondrial diseases and cancer. We will further show how these findings can be applied to pharmacogenomic discovery and the search for new biomarkers.

Bio:

Aurora is a pharmacist (USC) specializing on mitochondrial functional genomics. She carried her Ph.D. at the Mitochondrial Biogenesis and Pathology group in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology of the University of Zaragoza, under the supervision of Dr. Eduardo Ruiz-Pesini. Then, she carried out a long postdoc at Prof. Patrick Chinnery's laboratory, first at the University of Newcastle (UK) and then at the Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge. In March 2020, she returned to Spain as a Talento Fellow (Comunidad de Madrid) to start her own laboratory (MitoPhenomics) at CIB Margarita Salas-CSIC. In September 2022, her lab joined CiMUS with a RyC Fellowship and she is the PI at the MitoPhenomics lab research group.

She has published more than 35 papers in several journals Nature Medicine, Nature Genetics, Nature Comms, EMBO, and JACI. Her lab and trainees are been funded by several agencies including Comunidad de Madrid, AEI, Fundación Tatiana Guzman, Mehuer Foundation for rare diseases studies, Banco Santander, AECC, and so on.

Aurora is very committed to the equality of gender in science and research. She has been a board member of the Comisión Mujer y Ciencia at CIB-CSIC and she has co-founded @mitowomen, a network of women working in mitochondria. She is also interested in public science being an active part of CONÓCELAS-ASEICA, 11F, Semana de la Ciencia, etc. She also believes in the importance of mentoring, transversal training in research, and equality of opportunities.

Attendance certificates will be provided upon request to cimus.xestion [at] usc.es. Please bear in mind to register by writing clearly the name and surname on the printed sheet. We will not be responsible for amending the records of anyone who fails to do so