I am a postdoctoral fellow in Yaowen Wu’s group. My research focus on the study of the autophagy process underlying the STING pathway activation.
I obtained my PhD in Biology and Clinic of Cancer and Translational Medicine from the University of Salamanca in Spain, where I characterised different variants of the VRK1 kinase involve in neuromotor syndromes, focusing on its stability, catalytic activity, and various cellular responses in which VRK1 plays an important role. Following my PhD, I joined Yaowen Wu lab at Umeå University in August 2022.
In my current project, I am investigating the role of LC3 in STING-induced autophagy. STING is an important protein that binds to cyclic dinucleotides produced by cGAS to activate innate immunity against microbial infection. LC3 is a central protein in the autophagy pathway, a cellular process involved in the degradation of unnecessary or damaged cellular components. It has been reported that STING activation leads not only to the innate immune response, but also to autophagy. However, the precise mechanism by which STING regulates autophagy remains unclear.