Biography

Alejandro Vaquero (Barcelona, 1971) graduated in Biochemistry in 1994 from the University of Barcelona, and received his PhD “Cum Laude” from the same University in 2000 for his work on Drosophila GAGA factor on transcription. In 2000, Dr Vaquero moved to Dr Danny Reinberg’s lab (HHMI, USA) to perform his postdoctoral studies. There, Dr Vaquero made significant contributions to the epigenetics field, through the study of the role of the NAD+-dependent deacetylases Sirtuins, in chromatin dynamics upon stress.  In 2001, he became Howard Hughes Research associate, position he held until the end of 2005, when he returned to Spain as an I3P Researcher in Fernando Azorín lab (IBMB-CSIC) where he was appointed ICREA Jr Researcher in 2006 to work in the identification and functional characterization of linker Histone H1 post-translational modifications in chromatin structure.

  In 2008, Dr Vaquero became group leader of the Chromatin Biology Lab in the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program of IDIBELL (Barcelona), centered on understanding the role of Sirtuins in the regulation of genome stability in response to stress, employing a combination of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology and Genetics. Since its foundation, Dr Vaquero’s lab has described several novel stress-dependent mechanisms of genomic protection and epigenetics in some of the most relevant journals of the field including Scientific Advances, Nature communications, Molecular Cell, NAR, Cell Reports or Genes & Development, among others. Reflecting the relevance of the work, the group has been funded by prestigious national and international funding agencies such as MINECO, European Comission (FP7, Horizon2020), Worldwide cancer Research, TV3 Marató and AECC strategic projects.

  In 2019 the group moved to Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute where his group has expanded their studies to define the contribution of Sirtuin function to hematological malignancies. Dr Vaquero is author of more than 65 publications, is member of the editorial board of journals Genes and Frontiers Cell and Developmental Biology. He is a regular grant and publications reviewer for some of the most relevant funding organizations and journals and has been organizer of two international meetings, including the first meeting exclusively focused on Sirtuins. The laboratory is also a member of the European Union Epigenome Network of Excellence.