Biography

Sergi holds a Degree in Biology (2006) from the University of Barcelona, which included one year of undergraduate training at the University of Toulouse (France), where he also did his MSc. In 2013, he completed a PhD in the Chromatin Structure and Function Lab (IBMB-CSIC and IRB Barcelona) under the supervision of Dr. M Lluisa Espinàs. His doctoral research primarily focused on investigating the proteins and genomic elements involved in transcriptional regulation through insulator elements. Following his PhD, Sergi undertook a postdoctoral position in Matthias Merkenschlager's lab at Imperial College London/MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (2013-2018). During this period, he identified a novel role of cohesin in controlling the activation of inflammatory gene expression. This finding shed light on the increased resistance to differentiation observed in cohesin-deficient hematopoietic progenitors and provided an explanation for the high occurrence of cohesin mutations in acute myeloid leukemia. Subsequently, Sergi was a postdoctoral researcher in Thomas Graf's lab at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona. Currently, he holds a junior group leader position at the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC), where he leads the Transcriptional Dynamics in Leukemia lab. The lab’s primary research interests revolve around unraveling the mechanisms that control normal and malignant hematopoiesis, with a particular focus on the roles of cohesin and CTCF.