Arkaitz Carracedo
Arkaitz Carracedo obtained his BSc in Biology from the Complutense University of Madrid, and he continued his scientific pursuits by completing his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the same university. At this early stage in his career, he focused on researching the "Antitumor Effects of Cannabinoids: The Role of p8 and Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress". At the end of his tenure at the Guzman laboratory, Dr. Carracedo advanced his research on how compounds regulate autophagy via the oncogenic PI3K-mTOR pathway, sparking his deep interest in its impact on cancer cell biology and potential pharmacological targeting. To explore this from a novel perspective, he joined Pier Paolo Pandolfi's lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he concentrated on the PI3K-mTOR pathway's role in cancer. His work enhanced understanding of the tumor suppressor PTEN in prostate cancer and clarified the regulation of mTOR signaling and its therapeutic potential. Utilizing cell biology studies and genetically modified mouse models, he also explored cancer cell metabolic reprogramming, specifically focusing on fatty acid oxidation as a therapeutic avenue. Dr. Carracedo completed a total of four years of postdoctoral research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, USA. In 2010, Dr. Carracedo joined CIC bioGUNE, first as a Ramón y Cajal researcher and then as an Ikerbasque Research Professor and Group Leader of the Cancer Cell Signaling and Metabolism Lab, under an ERC Consolidator Grant. His research group is aimed at deconstructing the essential requirements of cancer cells with special emphasis on the translation of the acquired knowledge from bench to bedside. In order to define the genuine features of cancer cells, they focus on the signaling and metabolic alterations in tumors. Through a multidisciplinary approach with increasing complexity, his lab works on bioinformatics, cell lines and primary cultures (using cell and molecular biology technologies), mouse models of prostate cancer that are faithful to the human disease and the analysis of human specimens through the development of prospective and retrospective studies.