Short biography
Alejandro Vaquero (Barcelona, 1971) graduated in Biochemistry in 1994 from the University of Barcelona (UB), and received his PhD "Cum Laude" in 2000 from the same University. Dr Vaquero joined the laboratory of Dr Danny Reinberg (HHMI,NJ,USA) in 2000 as a postdoctoral fellow where he contributed to the chromatin epigenetics field through the study of the role of Sirtuins on chromatin function. In 2001, he became Howard Hughes Research associate, position he held until the end of 2005,when he returned to Spain as an I3P Researcher(CSIC) in the Institut de Biologia Molecular de Barcelona. In Dec 2006, he was appointed ICREA Researcher and in 2008, he became senior group leader of the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program in IDIBELL institute, where his group aims to understand the role of Sirtuins in chromatin regulation under oxidative stress conditions. Research interests
Cell life regulation is determined by the information encoded in chromatin DNA. Defects in chromatin regulation have been shown to be crucial in the onset of pathologies such as cancer and aging, among others. The main goal of my research is to understand the mechanisms ruling/governing Chromatin dynamics, and in particular how certain stress conditions such as oxidative stress shape chromatin to keep a healthy and efficient Chromatin organization. Therefore, my laboratory is centered in understanding the role of a family of proteins, the Sir2 family or Sirtuins, in chromatin regulation through a combination of biochemistry and molecular and cell biology. Sirtuins are NAD+-dependent deacetylases involved in sensing and signalling stress conditions. Their involvement in many different human pathologies such as cancer, diabetes or neurodegenerative diseases suggest that they will be of the utmost importance in Biomedicine in the near future. Key words
Sirtuins, Chromatin, epigenetics, deacetylases, methyltransferases, cancer, senescence