Governance
Scientific Coordinator
Esteban Ballestar
Background
I started my scientific career by studying Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Valencia in Spain. I gained my first research experience during a number of internships at different departments of my university. Back then, I became excited about how cells pack the DNA and manage the information through chromatin and joined the team of Luis Franco for my PhD thesis. Later, I joined Alan Wolffe's team at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, USA) where I investigated the association between histone modifiers and methylated DNA.
After this period, I worked at the Spanish National Cancer Center (CNIO), in association with Manel Esteller's group, where I shifted my research to cancer epigenetics. At that time, I realized that, while the field of cancer epigenetics was booming, there was little progress in epigenetics in relation to immune pathological conditions. In 2008, I became group leader at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) in Barcelona where my research focused on epigenetic mechanisms in immune cells. During this period, my team showed the relevance of epigenetic dysregulation in major immune-mediated diseases and investigated mechanisms underlying the acquisition of targeted epigenetic changes in immune cells. In 2019, I moved my team to the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC), where we continue working on these topics.