Eloisa Herrera Laboratory
Generation and Regeneration of Bilateral Neural Circuits
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Current Lab Members
Group Leader
Eloisa got her PhD degree at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2000 under the supervision of Prof. María Blasco working on the role of telomeres and telomerase in mammals. She then moved to New York, to the laboratory of Prof. Carol Mason at Columbia University where she contributed to unveil some of the transcriptional mechanisms controlling axon guidance at the brain midline. Since 2005, Eloisa leads a research team at the Neuroscience Institute in Alicante (Spain), focused on the identification of new molecular mechanisms controlling neural circuit assembly.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Cruz got her PhD at the Universidad Miguel Hernandez (Spain) in 2004, under the supervision of Prof. A. Ferrer-Montiel, working on the molecular mechanisms of sensory and pain transduction. During her Thesis work, she described that TRPV1, the most relevant channel in nocicepcion, is delivered to the sensory neuron surface by regulated excocytosis. She then moved the laboratory of Prof. John Wood at the University College (London) where she continued her work on molecular sensory transduction and nociception. In 2006, she joined the group of Dr. Felix Viana at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante (Spain). Since 2012 she is working as a senior postdoctoral researcher in the group of Eloisa Herrera in the same Institute.
Verónica studied biology at the Universidad de Alicante. Then she moved to the laboratory of Dr. Fernando de Castro (Toledo) where she got her PhD degree in 2013. Her PhD research focused on the mechanism of action of the glycoprotein anosmin-1 and its interaction with the receptor FGFR1 during the development of the central nervous system. After that, she came back to Alicante and joined Eloisa’s group in Alicante to study RNA-based mechanisms underlying axon guidance.
Marta got her degree in Biology at the Universidad de Valencia in 2009. Then she joined the group of Dr. José Javier Lucas Lozano at the Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa (Madrid) where she got her PhD degree in 2015. During her PhD work, she discovered that in Huntington´s Disease there is a disbalance in Tau isoforms like in other tauopathies and, the presence of a new Tau-histopathological hallmark called Tau nuclear rods in patients´ brain. After that, she joined Dr. Eloisa Herrera´s laboratory in Alicante.
Augusto Escalante Rodríguez aescalante@umh.es
Augusto got his PhD in 2013 in our lab. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Prof. Rüdiger Klein at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich (Germany) from 2013 to 2018 when he rejoined our lab.
Carlos Sánchez Huertas chuertas@umh.es
Carlos did his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Beatriz Rico at the Institute of Neuroscience. For a first postdoc he joined the laboratory of Dr. Jens Lüders at IRB Barcelona to investigate the mechanisms of microtubule nucleation in the axon. Then, he moved to the laboratory of Prof. Anne Debant at CRBM Montpellier (CNRS) to deep on the cytoskeleton regulators controlling axon guidance. In June 2020 he got funded by the Severo Ochoa Postdoctoral Programe to join the lab of Prof. Eloisa Herrera at the Institute of Neuroscience and study the role of cytoskeleton during axon regeneration following injury.
PhD students
Mayte obtain a degree in biochemistry in 2011 at the University of Murcia. She obtained a Msc degree in Neuroscience at the Pablo de Olavide University in Sevilla in 2013 and Msc degree in Bioinformatics at the University of Murcia in 2015. She joined the group of Faustino Marin at the IMIB-Arrixaca where she did her MSc thesis in brain regions classification according to quantitative genes expression. She received a prize for this work from the University of Murcia. In 2015 she joined Angel Barco’s lab at the Neuroscience institute in Alicante, working as bioinformatics, specializing in NGS techniques, and different bioinformatics tools. She is pursuing her doctoral studies in Eloisa Herrera's lab since 2018.
Patricia graduated in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at the Universidad de Valencia in 2019, and during the degree she was in Isabel Fariñas’ lab at Universidad de Valencia and in Jerónimo Bravo’s lab at Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia (IBV). Then she did a master’s degree in Research and Development in Biotechnology and Biomedicine at Universidad de Valencia during which she studied the division mode of Neural Stem Cells (NSCs) in vitro employing techniques of bioimage analysis in Isabel Fariñas’ lab. At this time, she is carrying out her PhD in Eloisa Herrera's group at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante focused on the role of spontaneous retinal activity in optic nerve myelination.
Isabel studied Biotechnology at the Miguel Hernández University (2015-2019). Then, she joined a Master degree in Biomedical Biotechnology at Universitat Politècnica de València (2019-2021). There, she carried out her TFM at Herrera´s lab studying the dynamic of the cytoskeleton of the growth cone in RGCs. At this time, she is carrying out her PhD in Eloisa Herrera´s group at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante focused in a potential strategy to guide and promote visual axons regeneration after traumatic injury.
Leonor got her degree in Biology from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (2018-2021). She remained at the University of Lisbon to obtain the Master's in Evolutionary and Developmental Biology (2021-2023). She developed her Master's Thesis at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, under the supervision of Dr Ruth Diez del Corral, focussing on the development of the posterior commissure in zebrafish.
At the moment, she is carrying out her PhD at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante in Eloisa Herrera's laboratory, with the goal of better understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying spinal interneurons laterality.
Technicians
Yaiza studied veterinary in the University of Camaguey in Cuba. She joined the laboratory in 2010 and she has become an expert electroporating in utero.
Macarena graduated with a degree in Biology at the Universidad de Sevilla. She began her training at Dr. Michael Bastiani lab (University of Utah), continuing with Dr. Carmen de Felipe at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante. She is at Eloisa Herrera's lab since 2011
Administration
Beatriz Yunta graduated in Translation and Interpreting by the Universidad de Alicante in 2008. She started to work as administrative staff at the Instituto de Neurociencias in 2008 and moved in 2010 to the Instituto de Investigación en Inteligencia Artificial in Barcelona. Since 2012 she joined Eloísa Herrera’s lab where she is currently the administrative assistant.
