Eloy Almenar Pérez
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ever since his first steps in science, Eloy have been involved in different research projects. During the 4 year of his undergraduate studies, he joined a research group at the University of Murcia, working on the development of new therapies to treat infections by Candida albicans. The focus of his work was the characterisation of the trehalose cellular pathway, through the production of loss-of-function mutants of the fundamental enzymes of this cellular pathway. As a result, they were able to identify two relevant enzymes in this pathway, whose in-depth study will allow the development of new strategies for the treatment of these infections.
For his Master thesis, Eloy investigated the development of new diagnostic methods for systemic candidiasis. The study focused on the characterisation of a monoclonal antibody specific for detecting C.albicans, as well as the identification of the target of this antibody by mass spectrometry. As a result, Eloy develop an efficient and reliable methodology for the identification of systemic infections caused by C.albicans, as well as the identification of a set of peptidoglycans, whose in-depth analysis could be of great use for the development of new approaches for the diagnosis of this type of infections.
More recently, Eloy obtained his PhD in biomedicine from the Catholic University of Valencia, being the main topic of his doctoral thesis the search for biomarkers associated with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). For this purpose, he focused on the analysis of the differential expression of microRNAs in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and extracellular vesicles, using high-density microarray technology and RT-qPCR. In addition, the isolation, morphological and functional characterization of extracellular vesicles derived from the plasma of these patients, samples obtained from the UK ME/CFS Biobank. As a result of this research he was able to identify biomarkers unique to this disease, which will allow the development of the first diagnostic test and disease model of ME/CFS. This research was funded by the MEA (ME Association, UK), and also has a grant sponsored by the pharmaceutical company Mundipharma.
Currently, Eloy is a postdoctoral fellow who joined the CellCOM group in May 2022 at INIBIC. He is trying to identify new functions of connexins in tumour progression.
During this last stage of his scientific career, Eloy have acquired skills related to data mining and statistical data analysis using R, as well as extensive knowledge in omics or cell culture techniques, and mastered other tools in the field of bioinformatics. These skills have been very useful in his day-to-day work to find effective solutions to the problems that have emerged, resulting 8 research articles published in high impact journals such as Scientific Reports, Frontiers in Medicine and participating as a presenter in international conferences, such as International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV).
