Daniel Muñoz-Espín studied Biology and Molecular Biology at the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain, where he also completed his PhD with cum laude honours within the Viral DNA Replication Group at the Centre of Molecular Biology Severo Ochoa (CMBSO), under the supervision of Dr Margarita Salas. During his PhD, he also worked at Sir William Dunn School of Pathology (University of Oxford, UK) as a visiting student. He was then awarded an I3P Fellowship followed by a Spanish National Research Council Fellowship to conduct postdoctoral research on DNA replication, resulting in several first- and corresponding authored papers. Based on his research, a patent was filed on a novel gene delivery system to Sygnis AG Pharma (2013). Dr Muñoz-Espín then moved to Dr Manuel Serrano’s group at Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), where his productive work culminated with two awarded grants: a Ramon y Cajal Programme Senior Grant and a National Programme Grant for Researched Aimed at the H2020 Societal Changes. His work demonstrated that, in addition to cancer and ageing, cellular senescence also plays a role during normal embryonic development, a process that was termed as “developmentally-programmed senescence”. This work, published in Cell in 2013, redefined cellular senescence as a tissue remodelling process acting in a physiological context. The scientific community received this novel concept with enthusiasm, as reflected by commentaries in top journal, including Cell, Nature, The EMBO Journal and Nature Reviews Molecular and Cell Biology.
In 2016, Dr Muñoz-Espín joined the Department of Oncology at the University of Cambridge as Principal Investigator as part of the Cancer Early Detection Programme of the CRUK Cambridge Centre. Some of his current funding sources include an MRC New Investigator Research Grant (NIRG), a CRUK Early Detection Project Award, and a Royal Society Research Grant. Recently, Dr Muñoz-Espín and colleagues have reported in EMBO Molecular Medicine a versatile drug delivery tool to target senescent cells that has been validated in a model of lung fibrosis, resulting in a remarkable reduction of the fibrotic scar and in the restoration of the pulmonary function, and in a model of cancer, resulting in full tumour regression in combination with senescence-inducing chemotherapy.
In 2016, Dr Muñoz-Espín joined the Department of Oncology at the University of Cambridge as Principal Investigator as part of the Cancer Early Detection Programme of the CRUK Cambridge Centre. Some of his current funding sources include an MRC New Investigator Research Grant (NIRG), a CRUK Early Detection Project Award, and a Royal Society Research Grant. Recently, Dr Muñoz-Espín and colleagues have reported in EMBO Molecular Medicine a versatile drug delivery tool to target senescent cells that has been validated in a model of lung fibrosis, resulting in a remarkable reduction of the fibrotic scar and in the restoration of the pulmonary function, and in a model of cancer, resulting in full tumour regression in combination with senescence-inducing chemotherapy.
