Next BBDG Seminar: "Subcellular architecture and neurodegeneration"

🗣️ M. Rosario Fernández-Fernández (Instituto de Biomedicina y Biotecnologia de Cantabria (IBBTEC-CSIC)

🗓️ Oct, Mon 19, 2026, 15:30

📍Félix M. Goñi Atrium (Instituto Biofisika 🗺️)

📄 "Subcellular architecture and neurodegeneration"

M. Rosario Fernández-Fernández conducted her doctoral research at the National Center for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), obtaining her PhD from the Autonomous University of Madrid in 1999. Her thesis work was strongly focused on biotechnology and involved the development of viral vectors to express proteins of interest in plants as potential vaccine sources. She undertook a postdoctoral fellowship (2002-2007) at the Centre for Protein Engineering (LMB/Medical Research Council) in Cambridge, UK, in the laboratory of Prof. Sir Alan R. Fersht, a world-renowned expert in protein chemistry and engineering. Her work focused on the role of protein-protein interactions in regulating the function of the p53 tumor suppressor. Upon returning to Spain in 2007, she decided to apply her prior experience in molecular and structural biology to the field of neurodegeneration, having Huntington's disease as a mode since then. Initially, she worked at the Severo Ochoa Center for Molecular Biology (CSIC), where she trained in the use of mouse models of the disease. In 2010, at the National Center for Biotechnology (CSIC), she and Dr. José Jesús Fernández (expert in image processing) launched an innovative line of research to study neuronal subcellular architecture and its alterations under neurodegenerative conditions, combining molecular biology, biophysics and 3D electron microscopy techniques. In July 2020, they moved to the Center for Research on Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology (CINN-CSIC) and the Health Research Institute of the Principality of Asturias (ISPA) where they expand their research to a biomedical context, collaborating with clinical groups and working with human samples. In late 2024, she joined IBBTEC as a CSIC Staff Scientist, where she continues her research and leads the Subcellular Architecture and Neurodegeneration group.