Name: Alberto Gómez-Navarro
Host Organisation: European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy, Italy
Project Title: Advanced imaging approaches for studying the tropisms of biopharmaceuticals in cleared CNS mouse tissues and their trafficking in single cells
Supervisor: Dr. Martino Calamai
Objectives of the Project:
- Study the tropisms of APIs in cleared CNS mouse tissues. Learn clearing techniques and light sheet microscopy.
- Study the binding affinity of a set of nanobodies against a new putative inhibitory domain of Nogo-A in cells overexpressing a chimeric Nogo-A construct, and the mobility of the latter on the plasma membrane. Learn cell imaging with advanced microscopy and single molecule tracking.
- Participate to the characterization of trafficking of nano/micro particles in cells and of diffusion rates in hydrogels in vitro.
Short Biography:
Alberto Gómez-Navarro obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Malaga and Seville, and his Master’s Degree in Neuroscience at the Complutense University of Madrid. For his Master’s dissertation, he has worked in a line of research aimed at evaluating the neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory effects of different psychedelic compounds for drug development for Parkinson’s Disease, under the supervision of Dr. Jose A. Morales-García. He used a model of dopaminergic degeneration due to oxidative stress and a neuroinflammatory model with primary glial cultures isolated from mice, to study the potential benefits of tryptamine alkaloids for the treatment of this disorder. His first international experience took place during his Erasmus placement at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 2021. He thoroughly enjoyed working as part of an international team on a microbial biotechnology project, concerning bacteriophages and CRISPR-Cas9 technology as a therapeutic against “Vibrio cholerae O1″. In December 2023, he was selected as a MSCA-Early Stage Researcher within the Bio2Brain network at the European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS) in Florence, Italy, to work on the project “Nose-to-Brain Delivery of Biopharmaceutics for the Therapy of Central Nervous System Diseases”, under the supervision of Dr. Martino Calamai.