Juan A Bernal Rodríguez

Biography

Juan A. Bernal holds a Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences (Universidad de Sevilla, 1999) and a Specialist in Molecular and Cellular Biology (Universidad de Sevilla, 2001), defended his doctoral thesis in 2004 at the Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of the CSIC in the laboratory of Dr. Jose A Pintor-Toro on the role of oncogenes in inhibiting the transcriptional activity of the p53 tumor suppressor. With an EMBO (Long Term) scholarship he moved to England to begin his postdoctoral stage. During the 6 years postdoc in the laboratory of Ashok Venkitaraman (Hutchison MRC Center for Translational Research, Cambridge, UK, 2004-2010) worked on different aspects of the DNA metabolism, from the initiation of the replication, through as it changes the structure of DNA after gene damage, to the relationship of problems during the initiation of replication with the segregation of sister chromatids during cytokinesis. In 2010, the Spanish research system was reincorporated under a Ramón & Cajal contract. I started an independent line of work, focusing on the development of new models of human diseases in induced pluripotent cells (iPS), as well as in animal systems. Using a new method to generate tissue-specific transgenics is able to transduce wild animals with adeno-associated viruses to express genes that induce right ventricular arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ARVC) or hyperlipidemia using (AAV). These viruses are generally used as tools in gene therapy and have adapted them to generate transgenic animals. Thanks to these new models he has been able to demonstrate, for example, that extreme exercise is a trigger for the development of ARVC, After an external scientific evaluation, since April of 2015 he is Assistant Professor at the National Cardiovascular Research Center (CNIC), as well as Scientific Advisor of the Viral Vectors Unit.

Research Interest

Cardiology