Sandra Menoyo, PhD

Sandra was one of the founders of the group. She got her PhD degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from UIC Barcelona in 2012. The main aim of her project was to better understand how nutrients regulate the cell cycle using yeast as a model organism.

Toward the end of her thesis research, she obtained very interesting results demonstrating how the yeast CDK Pho85 (stored in mammals as CDK5) regulates yeast Cyclin D levels through phosphorylation in response to nutrient availability. This induces a quiescent state in cells in order to sustain senescence in starvation conditions.

The high-impact journal Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) published these results (Menoyo et al., 2013). She was honoured with the “Outstanding PhD award”, prize awarded for the most outstanding doctoral thesis at the university that year.

She is currently pursuing a research career in the field of cancer and ageing as a postdoctoral scientist in the field of ribosome biogenesis and cancer, under the direction of George Thomas at the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona.