Biography

Biola Javierre was born in 1983 in Huesca, Spain. Since she began her scientific career, she has been deeply interested in understanding how genetically complex diseases develop, in particular autoimmune diseases and blood cancers. Initially, during her PhD (CNIO, Madrid, Spain), she approached this from an epigenetic perspective (Genome Res, 2010 & Mol Cancer Res, 2011). Stimulated by the fact that most epigenetic, as well as genetic, alterations associated with these diseases affect non-coding regions, she joined Peter Fraser’s group (Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK) as a postdoc to understand the contribution of the non-coding genome to autoimmunity, based on the study of the spatial-temporal chromatin architecture (Cell, 2016 & Nature Commun, 2021). In addition, she is interested in the role of genome architecture regulated by epigenetic machinery (Polycomb) in cell differentiation and oncogenesis (Nat Genet, 2015). Now, as an independent group leader (IJC, Barcelona, Spain; https://www.javierrelab.com), she has decided to combine her expertise in cell differentiation, malignant transformation, epigenetics and genome architecture to better understand hematopoiesis, which is a key process that is closely associated with blood cancer and autoimmunity (Trends Immunol, 2020 & Front Immunol, 2020).

Despite of her scientific early-stage, she has an outstanding publication record, including 27 scientific papers, 6 reviews and 2 book chapters (13, 3 and 4 of them as the first, last and corresponding author respectively), with an h index of 24, 2894 citations and an average impact factor of 13.912 (according to WOS, Publons and JCR). She also has strong international networks and solid leadership capabilities, being currently one of the most promising Young Investigators, as the L'Oréal-Unesco For Women in Science Research Award 2018 and the International Rising Talents 2019 L’Oréal-UNESCO reaffirm. She has been awarded with several fellowships and grants along her scientific career such as Ramon y Cajal, La Caixa Junior Leader, postdoctoral FEBS fellowship, Plan Nacional, The European Hematology Association Advanced Research Grant, the German Leukemia Foundation Research Grant, the Lab AECC Grant and the Wellcome Leap-HOPE Program Grant among others. She is actively contributing to the shaping of the IJC, as organizer of the PhD Student Seminars and member of the Gender Equality Committee. In addition, she has extended reviewing activities as guest editor (Genes Journal), ad-hoc reviewer (Nature Communications, Genome Research, Genome Biology, Science Report, Genomics, proteomics & Bioinformatics, GigaScience or Genes among others), expert referee (European Research Council, Spanish State Research Agency, La Caixa Foundation, Dutch Cancer Society, Israel Science Foundation and Polish National Science Center) and jury member of the King Jaume I Award.