Rosa studied Biochemistry at University of Oviedo and, after working for a while in immunology at the Center for Biological Research (CIB) and another brief period of systems biology at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG), she eventually got her PhD in systems neurobiology at the Max-Planck-Institute of Neurobiology in Munich. Her research deals with neuronal plasticity in mouse visual cortex and big 2-photon microscopes.
Could your parents’ lifestyle choices affect how long you live? And could this effect not be directly related to your genes? Scientists studying my favourite roundworm (C. elegans) have discovered a surprising answer: yes, they can. Why does the offspring live longer? Researchers at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus made an unexpected discovery while studying aging […]
Ever wondered why certain diseases seem to run in families, or how tiny changes in our DNA can lead to serious health conditions? Scientists have developed a powerful new tool that simultaneously analyzes both DNA and RNA within individual cells, offering unprecedented insight into how genetic variations contribute to disease. The Problem With Current Technology […]
Can a father’s lifestyle choices before conception influence the health of his future children? New research reveals that environmental factors affecting fathers can leave molecular footprints in embryos, shaping development and potentially impacting long-term health. Epigenetic inheritance For decades, scientists believed that inheritance was controlled exclusively by DNA sequences passed from parents to offspring. Today […]
Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa affect up to 70 million people worldwide. In particular, despite its prevalence and long-term duration, there are no effective pharmacological treatments for anorexia. This may change in the future if recent results in mice transfer appropriately to humans, as a “hunger” peptide appears to revert weight loss in mice […]
Women’s health has long been ignored by pharmaceutical research. Not only are they less often included in clinical trials, but many exclusive female conditions are either not or barely researched. One of those is menopause. A change that every woman will experience and that is characterised by a plethora of (unwelcome) symptoms: hot flashes, brain […]
It has been known for a while that pregnancy changes the brain. We had available data for humans and other mammals showing that after becoming mothers, women’s brains had undergone such profound changes that it is sometimes compared to the reorganization the brain suffers during puberty. What’s new then? A recent study put a scientist […]
When you think about DNA, the first thing that probably comes to mind is the double helix model published by Watson and Crick. However, in the 90s scientists identified a particular conformation in DNA molecules in vitro (in a tube): single chain knot-like loops that they called i-motifs. These structures form because, instead of the […]
One of the hallmarks of aging is cognitive decline. New research in mice shows that long-term administration with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psicoactive component of marihuana, at low doses can have antiaging-effects, particularly on cognitive decline. The endocannabinoid system (ECS) regulates various bodily and brain functions, including sleep, memory and learning, the immune system and […]
Many (if not most) clinical trials end up failing, but given the bias towards positive results sometimes the reasons for their not working remain unclear. Luckily, a team at Open Targets and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) have analysed the reasons for aborted clinical trials mentioned in Clinicaltrials.gov, the open-source register for clinical trials worldwide […]
Our DNA is a puzzle resulting from millions of years of evolution. An ancient part of it is composed of the genetic material of viruses that integrated in our genome and became part of “us.” Though it may seem strange, about 7% of our genomes are comprised by these old viral sequences. What’s more, recent […]