Biosketch

I graduated in Biology (Universidad Complutense de Madrid – Spain). I gained my PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology under Professor José Manuel Andreu supervision at CSIC-Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas (Madrid-Spain). During those years I studied the folding, assembly and filaments dynamics of bacterial cell division protein FtsZ. I also worked on the structural and functional relationship between FtsZ and its homologs in eukaryotic (tubulin) and prokaryotic cells (bacterial tubulin-BtubA/B). A 5 months stay in Jan Löwe’s lab (MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology, UK) in 2003 introduced me into the amazing world of protein structure determination by x-ray crystallography and gave me the glimpse of structural studies relevance on the understanding of the function of macromolecular machines.

At the end of my PhD in 2005 I decided to re-join Jan’s group to get further skills on crystallography and study different aspects of bacterial protein machines. I continue working on FtsZ and its conformational variability. I was also involved in a project aimed to understand how bacterial cell division protein DivIVA interacts with membranes and helps in FtsZ ring location.

After 4 years of postdoctoral research, I moved back to Spain and in 2012 I started a “tenured track” position funded by the Spanish Government at CSIC, where it is mandatory to be associated to a senior researcher. At the present time I am a Junior Researcher at CSIC- Centro de Investigaciones Biologicas linked to Jose Manuel Andreu’s lab and has established a close collaboration with his group while working on my own research line. At the present I worked on the identification and characterization of a type III partition system in a Clostridium botulinum phage. We have described the presence of a cytoskeletal protein (TubZ) in a virus genome and found a novel modulatory protein (TubY) in DNA segregation. I focus on the study of biological systems where cytomotive elements play central roles.