Andrea López Martínez studied a BSc in Biomedical sciences at the University of Barcelona (UB) and a MSc in Molecular biology and biomedicine at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Currently, she is undertaking an MSc in Bioinformatics and biostatistics from the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).
During her degree, Andrea obtained an ERASMUS+ Internship for five months at the Royal Holloway University of London (Egham, UK) to complete her final degree project, entitled “Correction of a nonsense mutation in the DMD gene using CRISPR/Cas9”. This work was qualified with Honors by the University of Barcelona (July, 2018). Although Andrea’s interest in neuromuscular disorders comes from long before, during her stay at the RHUL she realized she wanted to pursue her following steps in research in muscular dystrophies, so she joined the Neuromuscular disorders Group at Biocruces Bizkaia in December 2018 to complete her final master’s project, entitled “A gene editing strategy in Duchenne muscular dystrophy myoblasts”. Soon after its completion, in November 2019 she rejoined the group to conduct her PhD thesis in myotonic dystrophy type I (DM1).
Andrea’s thesis is part of the MaTILDa project, which aims to optimize the myoblot or In Cell Western assay of myoblasts cultures for the rapid assessment of therapeutic compounds for DM1. She is interested in protein quantification and the evaluation of splicing changes, as well as in the application of different genome editing strategies as CRISPR/Cas system or antisense oligonucleotides. In the group, she has had the opportunity to assist to various training courses in rare disease drug development or antisense oligonucleotides-based therapies, as well as publishing in peer-reviewed journals. She has been recently awarded with a FPU contract from the Ministry of Universities.
See Andrea’s publications in Google Scholar.