Veronica Davalos

Veronica Davalos’ scientific interest is focused in the molecular mechanisms that guarantee a tight control of gene expression during dynamic processes, in particular those occurring in cancer progression and metastasis. The plasticity and reversibility of the epigenetic mechanisms make them ideal orchestrators of these dynamic events. Dr Davalos’ research is aimed to exploit the potential of epigenomics to improve management of cancer patients. Her work has been centered in DNA methylation, the most studied epigenetic modification. After her Master degree associated to the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO, Madrid, Spain) and her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology working at the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR, Barcelona-Spain), she has developed her scientific career at the Cancer Epigenetic Group headed by Dr. Manel Esteller, a well-recognized pioneer in the field. Supported by the Olga Torres Foundation (FOT), she lead a project to study the relation between the epigenome and microRNAs in colorectal cancer that lead to identify a dynamic epigenetic control of a master regulator of the epithelial phenotype, the miR-200 family, during epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and its contribution to tumor progression and metastasis. In September 2013, Veronica joined to NYU Langone Medical Center (NY, USA) as Assistant Researcher. In 2014 she got a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship from the European Commission, to study the crosstalk between melanocyte differentiation and melanoma metastasis. Back to Spain in 2017 as AECC Researcher supported by the Spanish Association against Cancer (AECC) at the Josep Carreras Research Institute (IJC), she worked on identifying epigenetic biomarkers to predict response to immunotherapy in cancer. Now, as Associate Research Scientist at IJC, she is leading her own line of research in cancer of unknown primary (CUPs), a heterogeneous group of metastatic tumors that lack an identifiable primary tumor. She is interested on dissecting the cellular heterogeneity of CUPs by using cutting-edge technologies including Single-cell DNA methylation to zoom-in in to the cancer epigenome, and Spatial Transcriptomics to provide the first high-resolution gene expression maps of this enigmatic entity. These approaches will generate in-depth biological knowledge that could guide not only the development of novel tissue-agnostic therapies for these dismal tumors, but also broad our understanding about metastasis, the cause of a great majority of cancer-associated deaths. Veronica is also the Clinical Research Coordinator of The Cancer Genome Atlas project in CUPs (TCGA CUPP), a recently launched multicentric, multidisciplinary, multiomics project to characterize CUPs encompassing genomic, transcriptomic and epigenomic data. She has co-directed two PhD thesis (L. Piqué, 2019; L. Coll, 2021), both associated to the Universitat de Barcelona (UB). Veronica has authored 45 scientific publications, 91% in Q1 journals (Total impact factor 780; 3669 citations; h-index 27). Altogether, she is devoted to leverage her knowledge and expertise in tumor progression and metastasis, cancer epigenetics and immunotherapies to provide novel healthcare solutions for cancer treatment.