Laura Álvaro

PhD Student

Laura was born in Madrid (1993) and obtained her bachelor degree in Biotechnology (Healthcare field) at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. She carried out her bachelor’s thesis in the Molecular Diagnostics Unit at CNIO, led by Luis Lombardía. From October 2015 to September 2016 she was awarded with a “Citius” fellowship, a program from the Fundación Universidad-Empresa and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, to join the Quantitative Biology department at Eli Lilly and Company. During this period, she worked with organoid cultures derived from colorectal cancer patients and carried out drug screening assays. Afterwards she completed her Master in Molecular Biomedicine at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. In order to further study organoid cultures beyond the colorectal cancer setting, Laura joined in January 2017 the Epithelial Carcinogenesis Group at CNIO, led by Paco Real. During her Master Thesis she worked on the generation of bladder organoids from mouse urothelial cells and the role of PPARγ in urothelial differentiation. In 2018, Laura obtained a FPI fellowship to carry out her PhD studies at the Brain Metastasis Group. The aim of her project is to study the influence of the brain microenvironment on the development of brain metastasis.