ICREA Research Professor, ERC Starting Grant
Salvador Aznar Benitah obtained his Honours BSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at McGill University in 1998. In 2007, after a postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Prof. Fiona Watt at the London Research Institute (Cancer Research UK), he established is own lab at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) as a Junior ICREA researcher. In 2014 Salvador was promoted to ICREA Research Professor and moved to the Institute for Biomedical Research (IRB Barcelona) as a senior researcher. In 2015, he was also appointed as a Foundation Botin Researcher. In 2023 Salvador was appointed as the Coordinator of the Aging and Metabolism department at the IRB Barcelona.
His lab aims at understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying adult stem cell function during homeostasis, ageing and cancer, with special interests in epigenetics, spatiotemporal regulation of stem cells (circadian rhythms), and the link between metastatic-initiating-cells and their epigenetic and metabolic mechanisms. Based on his work on metastasis, Salvador funded ONA Therapeutics in 2019 as a spin-off of IRB Barcelona and ICREA to develop new therapies targeted against metastasis. In 2020 ONA Therapeutics closed a 30M Series A round of investment.
Salvador is the recipient of the Banc Sabadell Award in Biomedicine (2015), Doctor Diz Pintado Award in Biomedicine (2016), Beug Foundation Metastasis Award (2015), City of Barcelona Award in life sciences (2017), National Award on life sciences (2017), the Foundation Serra Award in Life Sciences (2019), the Severo Ochoa Award (2019), the Lilliane Bettencourt Award (2020), and The Atresmedia Award in life sciences (2024). In 2018, he was appointed as an EMBO member and has received a Consolidator and an Advanced ERC grant.