I did my PhD under the supervision of Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo at University of Barcelona (Spain), investigating the origin of animal multicellularity from a functional genomics perspective. Then, I spent four years at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), working with Amos Tanay on single-cell genomics of animal cell type diversity. Since 2019, I am a Group Leader at the CRG.

In 2016, I obtained my PhD studying Wnt pathway in A-P axis re-establishment during planarian regeneration (University of Barcelona). Then I studied how starvation and mTOR signalling regulates planarian adult stem cells in the Leibniz Institute on Aging (Germany). After this I moved to the Sars Institute (Norway), investigating  neural progenitor diversity in Nematostella vectensis.  I joined the lab in 2019 to study the developmental dynamics of cnidarian cell type programs.

I obtained my PhD from the University of Barcelona in 2017, under the supervision of Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo, investigating the origin of multicellularity in animals. In the past, I worked with David Weetman at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, studying the evolution of insecticide resistance adaptations in Anopheles mosquitoes. Since 2020, I am at the CRG, working on comparative genomics of eukaryotic chromatin.

I received my PhD from the University of Bayreuth (Germany) under the supervision of Dr. Claus Kuhn. There, I studied the piRNA pathway in planarian flatworms and its role in post-transcriptional regulation in adult stem cells. In 2020, I joined the Sebé-Pedrós Lab to explore the organization of chromatin architecture in non-bilaterian animals by combining methods of epigenomics and computational biology.

I obtained my PhD from the University of Rosario (Argentina), investigating the metabolism of sterols in protists from an evolutionary perspective. Then, I spent five years in Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo’s lab (Barcelona) studying the evolution of animal multicellularity, including scRNA-seq and developing genetic tools in diverse unicellular holozoans. I joined the CRG in 2020 to study the evolution of animal cell type differentiation using different single-cell genomics approaches.

I got my master thesis from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, working on codon usage in metagenomics. Before starting a PhD, I worked as a bioinformatician in the sequencing facility at the Institute of Cancer Reserach in London, UK. My PhD project now is exploring regulatory logic - primarily TF binding - in the evolution of cell types in non-bilaterian animals.

As a master student, I investigated the mechanisms of RNA toxicity in Huntington’s disease at CRG (Spain). Then, I worked as a research assistant in the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (Poland), focusing on RNA editing in early development and heart regeneration in zebrafish. Since 2020, I am back in CRG, where I investigate the evolution of eukaryotic chromatin using comparative proteomics and genomics approaches.

I am a medical doctor with a passion for evolutionary biology. During my M.D. studies, I have been investigating the lncRNAs in planarian regeneration at Tel Aviv University, Nematostella neurogenesis at CRG, and RNA biology of enigmatic octopuses at BIMSB ( Berlin). In 2021, I am joining Sebe-Pedros lab to dive into gene regulatory network evolution and to understand basic principles by which cell-type regulatory programs in metazoans evolve.

Former lab members

Sergi Muyo. Master student (UB).

Monica Varona. Master student (UAB)

Lucia Troiani. Summer intern.

Grygoriy Zolotarov. Summer intern.