Prof. Marta Cascante
Marta Cascante is Full Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biomedicine at University of Barcelona (UB), Spain. She leads the research team “Integrative Systems Biology, Metabolomics and Cancer”, which has achieved outstanding international recognition for her pioneer work on developing and applying tools for the study of metabolic flux reprogramming in multifactorial diseases, such as cancer and COPD.
She holds a degree in chemistry and a PhD in biochemistry from UB, where she was distinguished with the Outstanding Graduate and Thesis Awards. She has authored over 230 publications, two of them cited in “Stryer” biochemistry textbook. She is partner of European translational research projects (H2020) in the field of systems medicine and metabolomics and member of the editorial advisory boards of Metabolomics and BMC systems Biology. She also served in the scientific committee of numerous international conferences. She is member of the institute of Biomedicine of University of Barcelona (IBUB) and coordinator of the Spanish Network of Systems Medicine (SAF2015-70270-REDT). She leads a GC-MS platform for Stable-Isotope-Resolved Metabolomics at UB and she has also large experience in supporting biomedical community at national and international level in targeted metabolomics profiling for a wide range of sample types (i.e. cell cultures, blood plasma, animal tissues, exhaled breath, etc..) using the core LC-MS platform at CCiT at UB.
She has been distinguished in 2010 and 2015 with ICREA Academia Prize and in 2015 with the Narcis Monturiol Medal of the Catalan Government for her scientific merits. In 2016 she also has been awarded with the Antoni Caparrós Prize for the best project on knowledge transfer conferred by the UB Board of Trustees and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation. She has large experience in collaborative projects with companies and clinical research centers to transfer the results of her research either at national level (Biomaslinic, Gendiac, Hospital Clínic, Hospital del Mar, IDIBAPS) as at international level (Biomax, Tavargenix, Biocrates, Mayo Clinic).
Prof. Cascante’s research interests are focused on cancer and metabolic diseases with the goal of elucidating the networks and pathways that are fundamental in their development and progression. More specifically, her research group uses a Systems Medicine approach to identify key proteins in the metabolic reprogramming underlying multifactorial diseases, including cancer, to be used as biomarkers or drug targets. A selection of 5 recent publications representative of her research are:
- Tarrado-Castellarnau, M.; de Atauri, P.; Tarragó-Celada, J.; Perarnau, J.; Yuneva, M.; Thomson, T.M.; Cascante, M. (2017) De novo MYC addiction as an adaptive response of cancer cells to CDK4/6 inhibition. Molecular Systems Biology 13(10): 940.
- Chong, M.; Jayaraman, A.; Marin, S.; Selivanov, V.; de Atauri Carulla, P.R.; Tennant, D.A.; Cascante, M.; Günther, U.L.; Ludwig, C. (2017) Combined Analysis of NMR and MS Spectra (CANMS). Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) 56(15): 4140-4144.
- Aguilar, E.; Marin de Mas, I.; Zodda, E.; Marín, S.; Morrish, F.; Selivanov, V.; Meca-Cortés, Ó.; Delowar, H.; Pons, M.; Izquierdo, I.; Celià-Terrassa, A.; de Atauri, P.; Centelles, J.J.; Hockenbery, D.; Thomson, T.M.; Cascante, M. (2016) Metabolic reprogramming and dependencies associated with epithelial cancer stem cells uncoupled from epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Stem Cells 34(5): 1163-1176.
- Schoors S., De Bock K., Cantelmo A.R., Georgiadou M., Ghesquière B., Cauwenberghs S., Kuchnio A., Wong B.W., Quaegebeur A., Goveia J., Bifari F., Wang X., Blanco R., Tembuyser B., Cornelissen I., Bouché A., Vinckier S., Diaz-Moralli S., Gerhardt H., Telang S., Cascante M., Chesney J., Dewerchin M., Carmeliet P. (2014) Partial and transient teduction of glycolysis by PFKFB3 blockade reduces pathological angiogenesis. Cell Metabolism 19(1): 37-48.
- Kaplon J., Zheng L., Meissl K., Chaneton B., Selivanov V.A., Mackay G., van der Burg S.H., Verdegaal E.M., Cascante M., Shlomi T., Gottlieb E., Peeper D.S. (2013) A key role for mitochondrial gatekeeper pyruvate dehydrogenase in oncogene-induced senescence. Nature 498(7452): 109-112.