Biography:
Juan Carlos completed his BSc in Chemistry at the University of Yucatan, Mexico. He has a Master’s Degree in Immunology from the National School of Biological Sciences of the National Polytechnic Institute (ENCB-IPN, Mexico) and a PhD in Cell Biology from the Centre for Advanced Research of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico). During his postgraduate studies, he evaluated immunological responses to pathogens such as Leishmania and dengue virus as well as the development of the immune system. In 2016, Juan Carlos was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the Mexican Council of Science (CONACYT) to take on a position abroad within Professor Kai-Michael Toellner team at the University of Birmingham, UK. There, he evaluated the B cell receptor (BCR) signalling on B cell fate decisions during vaccination. Finally, in late 2020, he joined James Thaventhiran’s laboratory at the MRC Toxicology Unit-University of Cambridge, where he has been able to translate basic research into the clinic, assessing B cell responses to vaccination using samples from COVID-19-vaccinated immunotherapy-treated-cancer patients or patients suffering from immunodeficiencies.
Research interests:
Exciting questions to me are how adaptive immune responses are generated and the relevant mechanisms that control them. During inflammatory/infectious conditions the immune system is at constant risk of developing malignancy or autoreactivity, checkpoints during an immune response need to be highly regulated to avoid immunotoxicity. My long-term goal is to contribute to the understanding of how B and T cells respond in different circumstances and to use this knowledge in the improvement of immunotherapies.