Lara García Varela

Topic: Monoclonal antibody-based PET radiopharmaceuticals for theragnosis in brain diseases.

Lara Garcia Varela holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Pharmacy from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and a PhD certificate in Medical Science from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands).

In 2017, Lara was accepted as a PhD candidate by the Abel Tasman Talent Program in the Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Department at the University Medical Center of Groningen (UMCG), and her thesis was supervised by Prof. Philip Elsinga and Dr. Gert Luurtsema. Lara’s PhD project used Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging and the novel radiotracer [18F]MC225 to monitor the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) function at the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) in vivo under different conditions and in different species. Her results confirmed the adequate kinetics of [18F]MC225 to monitor the BBB P-gp function and set the ground for its clinical translation.

In 2021, Lara was awarded a Postdoctoral Research Grant (IDIS call 2021) to work in both the Neuroscience and the Nuclear Molecular Imaging groups at IDIS Research Institute (Santiago de Compostela, Spain) where she continued studying how the P-gp transporter function and expression are regulated. During this period, Lara also started to work on the radiolabeling of biological compounds using zirconium-89.

In 2022, she received a Postdoctoral Research Grant from GAIN-Xunta de Galicia (ED481B-2022-027). Nowadays, Lara is currently working in the Molecular Geriatrics group at Uppsala University (Sweden) under the supervision of Prof. Stina Syvänen and Dr. Dag Sehlin.

Her research project focuses on improving the brain delivery of antibody-based radiopharmaceuticals by using Trojan Horse technology. Her research aims at improving the early diagnosis of Central Nervous System disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Glioblastoma, and helping in the selection of patients who may benefit from a particular immunotherapy. Recently, one of her projects has been financially awarded by the Scientific Foundation of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (IDEAS234675GARC, PI: Lara Garcia-Varela).
Lara is co-chair of the young Spanish Molecular Imaging Network (ySMIN), the Spanish young group of the European Society of Molecular Imaging (ESMI). As part of the ySMIN, she helps in the organization of several online seminars and the annual national congress for young scientists.