Dr. Matilde Esther Lleonart Pajarín
I am group leader of "Biomedical Research in Cancer Stem Cells" at VHIR. I arrived at VHIR 21 years ago after having worked in different prestigious international research centers: World Health Organization (WHO) at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) (Lyon, France), the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research (WIBR) in London and the Queen´s Mary University of London.
Curriculum
My Research Group was recognized as an Emerging Research Group in 2009 by the Generalitat de Catalunya and later in 2014 as a Consolidated Research Group.
Throughout my career I have been involved in cancer research from a more molecular point of view correlating key mutations in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes with anatomical, pathological and clinical features of patients' tumors and also through cell culture studies to determine important key cell signaling pathways in tumorigenesis.
Currently, the main lines of research of my Research Group focus on the identification and characterization of biological mechanisms in resistant cancer cells, including cancer stem cells, to unravel the pathways responsible for their resistance in breast, lung and head and neck cancer models.
In addition, we are particularly focused on identifying molecular targets in resistant cancer cells and cancer stem cells affecting particularly aggressive tumors. The aim is to attack them pharmacologically in order to propose new cancer therapies: new drugs and/or drug combinations to combat resistant tumors in mouse models.
Throughout my career I have been involved in cancer research from a more molecular point of view correlating key mutations in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes with anatomical, pathological and clinical features of patients' tumors and also through cell culture studies to determine important key cell signaling pathways in tumorigenesis.
Currently, the main lines of research of my Research Group focus on the identification and characterization of biological mechanisms in resistant cancer cells, including cancer stem cells, to unravel the pathways responsible for their resistance in breast, lung and head and neck cancer models.
In addition, we are particularly focused on identifying molecular targets in resistant cancer cells and cancer stem cells affecting particularly aggressive tumors. The aim is to attack them pharmacologically in order to propose new cancer therapies: new drugs and/or drug combinations to combat resistant tumors in mouse models.
