CRISTINA MUÑOZ PINEDO
Group leader, Preclinical and experimental research in thoracic tumors Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain. Cristina Muñoz-Pinedo’s lab at IDIBELL in Barcelona, Spain, focuses on tumor responses to starvation and inhibition of cancer metabolism. C. Muñoz-Pinedo started her scientific career in the field of cell death and cancer metabolism under the supervision of Dr. Abelardo López-Rivas at CSIC in Granada, Spain. She then worked under the supervision of Doug Green at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, where she studied the role of the mitochondria during cell death as an initiator of the apoptotic process and as a “victim” of caspase activation. After a short stay in St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in 2006 she moved back to Spain to start a lab whose main interest is to understand how cells cope with starvation. In the “Preclinical and experimental research in thoracic tumors” group, C. Muñoz-Pinedo’s lab is applying the knowledge on cell death, cancer metabolism and responses to starvation to improve the treatment of lung cancer and mesothelioma.