PROJECT
SUPERVISORS

Project Supervisor

Sara Sdelci

Background

I joined the CRG in 2019 as a group leader. The position, which offers scientific independence, includes a fully equipped lab, access to facilities, and an annual budget that allows me to hire a lab technician, a PhD student, and a postdoc. The initial goal of my group was to identify the role of chromatin metabolism in cancer, and to answer this fundamental question, I was awarded an ERC-StG in 2019. I currently lead a group of 10 people, including 3 M.Sc. students, 4 Ph.D. students, 2 postdocs, 1 lab manager, and 1 bioinformatician.

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Over the past 5 years, I have gained significant experience as a group leader in the field of nuclear metabolism. Work in my group led to the discovery that in cancer cells several metabolic enzymes localize to the nucleus (Kourtis et al., Nature Communications in revision) and control critical chromatin functions such as transcription (Sdelci et al., Nature Genetics 2019, Pascual Reguant et al., EMBO Molecular Medicine 2023), cell cycle progression (Pascual Reguant et al., EMBO Molecular Medicine 2023, Pardo-Lorente et al Nature Communications 2024 in press, Gañez Zapater et al Nature communications in revision), nuclear ROS scavenging (Moretton and Kourtis et al., Molecular System Biology 2023) and DNA damage repair (Espinar and Garcia-Cao et al., Nature Communications in revision).

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Research

My broad background, ranging from cell cycle regulation (PhD studies) to chemical and genetic screening (postdoc studies) to cancer nuclear metabolism (PI experience), has trained me to dynamically apply my expertise to seize opportunities in new and rapidly evolving fields. In the coming years, I plan to use my extensive knowledge of nuclear metabolism to expand my research focus to translational research. I believe I can be a pioneer in this field by applying the concept of nuclear metabolism to the diagnosis and treatment of aggressive cancer subtypes for the first time.

Publications

Mitochondria-derived nuclear ATP surge protects against confinement-induced proliferation defects
Ghose R*, Pezzano F*, Kourtis S, Sheraj I, Das S, Gañez Zapater A, Ghose U, Espinar L, Parapatics L, Venturini V, Müller A, Ruprecht V, Sdelci S.
Nature Cell Biology (in revision) Biorxiv version https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.12.20.572417
* Equal contribution

Comprehensive chromatome profiling identifies metabolic enzymes on chromatin in healthy and cancer cells
Kourtis S, Guirola M, Pardo-Lorente N, Ghose R, Garcia-Cao M, Ganez-Zapater A, Haynes S, Fontaine F, Muller A, and Sdelci S.
Nature Communications (in revision) Biorxiv version https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.12.06.570368

Nuclear MTHFD2 secures mitosis progression by preserving centromere integrity
Pardo-Lorente N, Gkanogiannis A, Cozzuto L, Gañez Zapater A, Espinar L, Severino J, García-López L, Aydin R, Martin L, Neguembor M, Darai E, Cosma MP, Batlle-Morera L, Ponomarenko J and Sdelci S.
Nature Communications (accepted in principle) Biorxiv version https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.01.543193

Interactions between BRD4S, LOXL2, and MED1 drive cell cycle transcription in triple-negative breast cancer
Pascual-Reguant L, Serra-Camprubí Q, Datta D, Cianferoni D, Kourtis S, Gañez-Zapater A, Cannatá C, Espinar L, Querol J, García-López L, Musa-Afaneh S, Guirola M, Gkanogiannis A, Miró Canturri A, Guzman M, Rodríguez O, Herencia-Ropero A, Arribas J, Serra V, Serrano L, Tian TV, Peiró S, Sdelci S.
EMBO Molecular Medicine 2023 doi: 10.15252/emmm.202318459

A metabolic map of the DNA damage response identifies PRDX1 in the control of nuclear ROS scavenging and aspartate availability
Moretton A*, Kourtis S*, Gañez Zapater A, Calabrò C, Espinar Calvo ML, Fontaine F, Darai E, Abad Cortel E, Block S, Pascual-Reguant L, Pardo-Lorente N, Ghose R, Vander Heiden MG, Janic A, Müller AC, Loizou JI, Sdelci S.
Molecular System Biology 2023 doi: 10.15252/msb.202211267