Dr. Carracedo scientific career started and has always been related to a single question: What are the differences between normal and cancer cells that can allow us to develop more selective and effective therapies? During his undergraduate studies and later in his PhD thesis work, he approached this question by studying a family of compounds, cannabinoids, which show a high selectivity between normal and cancer cells. His work in the Guzman laboratory allowed them to uncover a novel signaling pathway that links cannabinoid receptor activation to endoplasmic reticulum stress-induced apoptosis, through a novel regulator, the stress protein p8. At the end of his period in Guzman laboratory, he had continued his work discovering that these compounds could regulate autophagy through the oncogenic PI3K-mTOR pathway, and in turn he became very interested in how this signaling pathway could influence cancer cell biology and the relevance of its pharmacological targeting in cancer. With this idea in mind, he joined Pier Paolo Pandolfi´s laboratory, at the time in Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, to continue his work from a different and innovative angle.

Dr. Carracedo joined the lab of Prof. Pandolfi with one idea in mind: to learn from a very different angle, and using different array of techniques, how the cancer cell functions and how can we target it for therapy. To this end, he focused these years in studying the regulation and relevance of the oncogenic PI3K-mTOR pathway in cancer. On the one hand, he has contributed to increase the knowledge of how the tumor suppressor PTEN operates and its relevance in prostate cancer cell biology. On the other hand, he has contributed to define the means of regulation of the mTOR signaling node and the therapeutic opportunities that modulating this kinase could offer. He addressed these questions, through the use of cell biology studies as well as employing genetically modified mouse models of human cancer. In the last phase of his post-doc, he became more interested in how another feature of cancer cells, the metabolic reprogramming, functions and how can it be used for therapy. In this line, he has developed studies focusing on the regulation of fatty acid oxidation in cancer cells, which are now submitted to publication. This has become one of his interests to build his independent line of research in his new position in the CIC bioGUNE institute in Bilbao, Spain, answering a key question: What is the contribution of cell metabolism to cancer cell biology and how can we use it for therapy? Currently, the Carracedo lab is composed of 9 people, including 3 postdocs, 2 PhD students, 1 bioinformatician and 3 technicians. This team of work contributes with very different perspectives, from stem cell work to nutrition, and therefore ensures that such a multidisciplinary proposal can be carried out.

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