Biography

Dr María Berdasco obtained her Ms in Biology with Honors (Premio Extraordinario de Licenciatura) at Oviedo University in 2001, and the PhD in 2005 in a joint training at Oviedo University and Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas-CSIC (Madrid) with a research focused on the role of epigenetic in plant differentiation processes. Then, she performed a 3-year postdoctoral training at the CNIO-Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (Madrid) working on the identification of epigenetic alterations linked to neuroblastoma. She moved to the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program (PEBC) at the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research (IDIBELL) in 2008 as part of the Dr. Esteller group. In 2011 she became an emergent group into Cancer Epigenetics group and she constituted a multidisciplinay team involving clinicians, molecular biologists and bioinformaticians, opening new research lines on the role of epigenetic in human disorders beyond cancer with a special attention to the translational research. In 2016, she was visiting researcher at University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) for a training in Epigenetic Editing (in collaboration with Prof. Marianne Rots). During this period at PEBC, she has been able to obtain national funding as principal investigator from competitive calls, including Fondo Investigación Sanitarias-Instituto Salud Carlos III, TV3 Marató, Fundación Isabel Gemio, Fundación La Caixa. She has participated in international research consortia of several European projects, covering funding schemes from the Cooperation Scheme in FP7 and H2020 as well as she was group leader of the WG3 “Epigenetic Reprogramming” of COST Action CM1406 (EPICHEM) (2014-2019). From 2019, she leads the “Epigenetic Therapies” research Group at Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute.

An aspect of interest for the translational value of the research is her education and professional activities in Bioethics and management of human samples for biomedical research. In 2019, she has been designated by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities as member of the Advisory Committee for Human Tissue and Cell donation and use, a management structure from the Sub-directorate general for Research on Cellular Therapy and Regenerative Medicine at the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. In addition, Dr. Berdasco is Vice-Chair of the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Center of Regenerative Medicine of Barcelona (CEI-CMR[B]) (from 2017). At local level, she has been member of the Research Ethics Committee at the Hospital de Bellvitge (2012-2018), and currently she is member of the Research Ethics Committee at the Hospital German Trias I Pujol (since 2019). She obtained a Master in “Biobanking and use of biological samples in biomedical research” organized by the Spanish National Network of Biobanks (2016). Among other major commission of trust, she is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Spanish Association against Cancer- Junta de Barcelona (from 2015) and Section Editor in Clinical Epigenetics (BioMed Central) within the area of cancer epigenetics and diagnostics.