Antonella Consiglio
Associate Professor and Group leader
Stem cell and Neurodegeneration unit,
IDIBELL/Bellvitge University Hospital
consiglio[at]ub.edu
Antonella Consiglio obtained her PhD in Cellular and Molecular Pathology at the HSR-TIGET (Milan) with Prof. Bordignon, and additional training at Gene Therapy Center of Lausanne and Vectors Technology Laboratory at Cell Genesys (Foster City, CA). She did her post-doctoral studies at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, under the direction of a pioneer of the field of adult neurogenesis, Prof. F.H.Gage. From 2006 to 2009 she was a Miguel Servet Investigator (Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain), at the Center of Regenerative Medicine of Barcelona (CMRB), Spain. In 2009, she was appointed Ramon y Cajal Investigator (Tenure-track) to the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB, Spain), where she established her independence as a junior investigator and developed her own research interests in her own laboratory in the area of regenerative medicine for neurodegenerative diseases. In 2013 she was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) StG by the EU. She is a recipient of the 2019 City of Barcelona award to the life sciences. Her group studies the molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease to get to a cure. From May 2017 she has been appointed as Associate Professor of Pathology at the Department of Pathology & Experimental Therapeutics, School of Medicine, University of Barcelona, UB. Her laboratory is also fully affiliated to the Program of Regenerative Medicine (P-CMRC) and is part of the Neuroscience Program at the IDIBELL, Bellvitge University Hospital.
Meritxell Pons Espinal
Beatriu de Pinós Investigator
Meritxell received her PhD in Biomedicine in 2013 at the Center for Genomic Regulation (Barcelona, Spain) under the supervision of Mara Dierssen, where she studied the in vivo cognitive effects of adult neurogenesis and hippocampal plasticity underlying intellectual disabilities. From 2013-2017 she did a postdoctoral stay at Neurobiology of miRNA lab leaded by Dr. De Pietri laboratory, Italian Institute of Technology (Genova, Italy), where she complimented the biomedical applied point of view of adult neurogenesis towards the understanding of the molecular basis of the process. In particular, she gained expertise on the involvement of non-coding RNAs (microRNAs and piwiRNAs) regulating neural stem cells from quiescence to neuronal differentiation. In 2017, she joint the lab as senior postdoc to study the non-cell autonomous mechanisms by which microglia and astrocytes interact with dopaminergic neurons to influence the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD). In 2019, she received a Beatriu de Pinós fellowship (AGAUR).
Aurora Scrivo
Maria Zambrano fellowship
After a bachelor in clinical Biotechnology from the university of Pavia (Italy), Aurora obtained a master degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris (France). She received her PhD in 2016, at the Neuroscience Institute in Montpellier (France), under the direction of Dr Pascale Bomont. Working on mouse model and patient cells, she characterized the role of the E3 ligase Gigaxonin in autophagy regulation, and its role in neuronal death and protein aggregation. In 2017, she joined the group of Dr Ana Maria Cuervo, at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York (USA), where she explored the regulation of the lysosomal system in neuronal and glial cells, gaining expertise in the study of Chaperone mediated autophagy (CMA). Specifically, she focused her study on the role of astrocytic cells in the regulation of neuronal CMA, and the involvement of this regulation in Alzheimer’s Disease. In 2021 she obtained a Maria Zambrano fellowship and joined Consiglio’s group in July 2022 as a senior postdoc. In Consiglio’s lab she will study the role of autophagy machinery in astrocytic and microglial cells, and how its impact in glia-neuron communication may affect Parkinson’s disease (PD) pathogenesis and neuronal death.
Alba Tristán Noguero
Postdoctoral Investigator
Alba obtained her degree in Biology in 2011 at the University of Barcelona. In 2012 she completed a Master in Developmental Biology and Genetics at the University of Barcelona. She did her master’s internship in the Department of Genetics at the University of Barcelona working in the genetics of autism and cocaine dependence. Alba joined Consiglio’s lab in 2016 to develop a THD iPSC based model to better understand the physiopathology of the Tyrosine Hydroxylase deficiency disorder and test different therapeutic approaches in vitro. On 2019 she obtatined her PhD (cum laude) with the work entitled “Tyrosine hydroxylase Deficiency: Studies in patient samples and in a cellular model” that she developed under the supervision of Dr. Consiglio and Dr. Àngels Garcia-Cazorla from the Fundació Sant Joan de Déu. She is currently working as a post-doctoral researcher investigating neurotransmission defects of paediatric patients suffering from Tyrosine Hydroxylase deficiency.
Valentina Baruffi
PhD Student
Valentina obtained her degree in Animal Production at Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna (UNIBO) in 2017. In 2019 she joined Consiglio laboratory as a master student and completed her thesis entitled “Investigating mitochondrial dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease using iPSC-derived astrocytes from LRRK2 PD patients”. In 2020 Valentina was back in the laboratory to start her PhD project investigating the interplay between innate and adaptive immune system in Parkinson’s Disease.
Veronica Testa
PhD Student
Veronica obtained her Bachelor degree in Medical Biotechnology at Università degli Studi di Milano (UNIMI) in 2018 and subsequently her Master degree in Biotechnology in Medicine at Università degli studi di Milano Bicocca (UNIMIB) in 2020. Thanks to the Erasmus programme she did her Master traineeship at Cambridge University in Pluchino Lab, studying the role of neuro-inflammation in spinal cord injury. After her Master graduation she joined Consiglio Lab, where she will begin her PhD in October 2021. The aim of her project is to study at the single cell level the neuroinflammatory contribution in the development of Parkinson Disease, taking advantage of 2D co-colture systems, as well as ventral midbrain organoids.
David Piñol Belenguer
PhD Student
David obtained his bachelor’s degree in Biomedicine in 2020 and his master’s degree in Neuroscience in 2021 both by the University of Barcelona. He joined Consiglio’s lab as an undergraduate student and joined a project to model Parkinson’s disease using ventral-midbrain like organoids derived from human iPSC. He is currently doing his PhD in Consiglio’s lab. The aim of his project is to study the key features of Tyrosine Hydroxylase Deficiency by taking advantage of a 3D cerebral organoids.
Irene Fernández Carasa
Research Assistant
Irene studied Biology at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona. She joined the laboratory as an ungraduate student and studied the neurogenesis in the adult brain in a mouse model. She received her Master degree in Biomedical Research in 2012 at the same University. In 2014 she started her work in the laboratory as a Research Assitant and gained expertise in induced pluripotent stem cell culture and diferentiation towards neural cells, specifically dopaminergic neurons and astrocytes. She participates in several projects of Parkinson’s disease modelling through induced pluripotent stem cells being her focus cell culture, histology and confocal microscopy technics.
Cynthia Tramosa
Laboratory Technician
Cynthia graduated as a Clinical and Biomedical laboratory technician in 2020 by Institut Roger de Llúria and the same year started working in the clinical laboratory of the Emergency department at Hospital del Mar. In 2022, she finished the Specialization course for Cell Culture at Institut Bonanova. In September 2022 she joined Consiglio’s lab. She is currently assisting in several projects, both in cell culture, generating and maintaining iPSC-derived neurons and microglia, and performing immunofluorescence staining of 2D and 3D iPSC-derived cultures.
General Collaborators
Prof. A. Zorzano, IRB,Barcelona
Prof. A.Raya, CMRB, Barcelona
Prof.A. Muotri, UCSD, San Diego
Prof. T. Cathomen, University Medical Centre, Freiburg, Germany
Dr. A. M. Cuervo, Albert Einstein College, New York
Dr. E.Tolosa, IDIBAPS, Hospital Clinic, Barcelona
Dr. J. Soriano, UB, Barcelona
Prof. Del Rio, UB, Barcelona
Prof. J. Garcia-Ojalvo, UPF, Barcelona
Dr. E. Martínez Hernández, IDIBAPS, Barcelona
Past Members
Carles Calatayud – Currently postdoctoral investigator at Laboratory of Neuronal Communication at VIB-KU Leuven
Isabel Turpin – Currently Technician at Evolutionary Systems Biology lab, IBE
Giulia Carola – Currently Project Consultant in Alientt
Silvia Beltramone – Currently Specialised Technician at Center for Genomic Regulation
Janani Parameswaran – Currently at Emory University, USA
Daniel Malagarriga – Currently Research Scientist in Artificial Intelligence Lab, Telefónica Alpha
Angelique di Domenico – Currently Postdoctoral Researcher at The New York Stem Cell Foundation
Marco Valtorta – Currently Postgraduate fellow in Vania Broccoli’s lab at San Raffaele Scientific Institute
Marta Cañizares – Currently Master student in Knoblich lab at the Insitute of Molecular Biotechnology
Armida Faella – Currently Technician at Comparative Genomics lab, IBE
Neus Bayó-Puxan – Currently Project Manager at Vall D’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO)
Roger Torrent – Currently part of the Clinical Research Unit at Sant Joan de Déu Institut de Recerca
Francesca de Angelis – Currently Postdoctoral Researcher at German Cancer Research Center
Adriana Sanchez-Danez – Currently Postdoctoral Researcher at Université Libre de Bruxelles
CONSIGLIO LAB 