Kate is a first-year PhD student in the UCL–Birkbeck MRC Doctoral Training Programme, focusing on the fundamental mechanisms of disease. She previously completed an MSci in Cell Biology at UCL, where she studied cell death and cell fate decisions in C. elegans. During her three-month rotation, she is further exploring her interest in the control of developmental cell fate decisions by investigating the role of cis-regulatory elements (CREs) using genomic assays and mass spectrometry approaches.
Yaiza obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Biomedicine and then completed a Master’s degree in Neuroscience at the University of Seville. She was fascinated by the complexity of the nervous system, both in architecture and functionality, so she joined the Neuroscience PhD Program at the University of Valencia.
She is currently a third-year PhD student in the Developmental Neurobiology Unit at the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia (IBV-CSIC), led by Dr. Nuria Flames. Her research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms that drive neuronal identity acquisition, using the nematode C. elegans as a model system. Specifically, She investigates how individual neurons acquire and maintain their unique identities during development.
From April to July, she is conducting a short research stay in the Delás Lab, funded by an EMBO Scientific Exchange Grant .Here, she is exploring whether some of the mechanisms underlying cell fate decisions that she has identified in C. elegans are evolutionarily conserved in mammals. Outside the laboratory, she enjoys traveling, discovering new places and cultures, and she really loves spending time in nature.
Search for Yaiza Dominguez Canterla's papers on the Publications page