Lab members
"Individually we are one drop, together we are an Ocean"
Ryunosuke Satoro
Marçal Vilar
Científico Titular CSIC
Biographical sketch
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Marçal Vilar received a degree from the University of Valencia (UV), Spain, in Chemistry in 1995. He earned a Ph.D. degree in the same University in 2002. His graduate studies were with the late Dr. E. Pérez-Payá "Quique" at UV (Very sadly Quique passed away last May 27th, 2013) and Dr. J.F. Marcos at IATA-CSIC in Peptide Biochemistry. From 2001-2003 Dr. Vilar was a Post-Doctoral fellow in Prof. Dr. Carlos Ibañez Molecular Neurobiology lab at the Institute Karolinska, in Stockholm, Sweden. There he devoted to the study of p75 neurotrophic factor receptor signaling. In 2003, Dr. Vilar moved to California, where he was a Research Associate at the Structural Biology laboratory of Dr. Roland Riek (now at the ETH Zurich) at The Salk Institute in La Jolla, doing research on p75ICD structure/function studies and on synuclein amyloid fibrils by NMR. In 2006 Dr. Vilar returned to Spain with a Juan de la Cierva fellowship from the Spanish Government to the Membrane Protein lab of Dr. Ismael Mingarro in the UV. In 2008, he moved for a Staff Scientist position at the Spanish Cancer Center (CNIO) in Madrid in the laboratory of Dr. Angel Nebreda (now at IRB Barcelona), studying protein structure and cell cycle regulation. He got a Ramón y Cajal award position in 2009. In November 2009 he got a permanent position at the Spanish Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII) in the Campus of Majadahonda (Madrid, Spain). In 2016 he changed research Institution moving to the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) at the Institute of Biomedicine in Valencia (IBV-CSIC), a position that currently occupies, as a group leader in the Unit of Molecular Basis of Neurodegeneration.
Education
1990-1995 Undergraduate studies at the University of Valencia. Chemistry.
1995-1997 Assistant Professor University of Valencia.
1997-2002 PhD degree at the University of Valencia. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Labs of Enrique Pérez-Payá and José F. Marcos.
2000 EMBO Short Term fellowship scientist visitor. The University of Stockholm. Prof. Gunnar von Heijne.
2001-2003 PostDoctoral Research. Karolinska Institutet. Stockholm. Prof. Carlos Ibañez.
2003-2006 Research Associate The Salk Institute. La Jolla. Prof. Dr. Roland Riek
2006-2008 Juan de la Cierva Researcher. The University of Valencia. Lab of Prof. Dr. Isamel Mingarro
2008-2009 Staff Scientist. Spanish Cancer Center, CNIO. Madrid. Prof. Dr. Angel Nebreda
2009-2016 P.I. Neurodegeneration laboratory. Spanish Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII).
2016- present P.I. Molecular Basis of Neurodegeneration. Spanish Research Council (CSIC).
Dr. María Luisa Franco
PostDoc
I'm from Peru. I studied Sanitary Biology at the Unisversity of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid). I joined the MVLab for my Master Degree from the University Complutense of Madrid.
I did my PhD @MVLab, on the mechanism of activation of TrkA and its interaction with p75.
My current Project is to study the role of p75CTF in neurons.
Dr. Elena Juarez Escoto
CSIC Staff
Andrea Benito
PhD Student
I'm from València.
I have a PhD Fellowship from the Spanish Association Against Cancer, Asociación Española contra el Cancer ACC, to do my PhD work on structural and functional studies of NTRK fusions.
Carol Felcita Lobo
PhD Student
I'm from India. I joined the MVLab in 2025 with a Fellowship from the Santiago Grisolía Program from the Generalitat Valenciana to start my PhD. I will study the role of p75 in cholinergic neurons.
Alicia Collado Garví
Master Student. JAE Intro
I'm from Albacete in the nice Castilla La Mancha. I joined the MVLab in 2025 with a JAE contract from the CSIC to start my scientific career and to di my Master Thesis. I will study the molecular mechanism of p75 cleavage.