ECP 2018 Final Programme

7 ECP 2018 · Bilbao Keynote Speakers e Manuel Serrano (Spain) Manuel Serrano obtained his PhD in 1991, at the University of Madrid (UAM). From 1991 to 1996, Serrano worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the team of David Beach in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY. During this period, Serrano made his most important discovery with the identification and characterization of the gene p16, one of the most important genes for anti-cancer protection and a key inducer of cellu- lar senescence. Serrano returned to Spain in 1997 to lead a research group, first at the National Center of Biotechnology (CNB), and then, from 2003 to 2017, at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), both in Madrid. In 2017, Serrano moved to the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB), in Barcelona. Manuel Serrano is internationally recognized in the field of tumour suppression and aging. In addition to the discovery of p16, one of his main discoveries has been the identification of cel- lular senescence as a main anti-oncogenic response. The Serrano team was also pioneer in the generation of genetically-modifed long-lived mice resistant to damage and cancer, through the regulated enhancement of the key tumour suppressors p53 and p16. Recently, his laboratory has also shown that cellular senescence participates in several tissue remodeling processes during embryo development. During the last years, the research interests of Manuel Serrano have extended to metabolism and cellular reprogramming in relation to aging. The Serrano laboratory was first in demon- strating that cellular reprogramming into pluripotency is possible within an organism, and this was considered Advance of the Year 2013 by Nature Medicine. More recently, Serrano has reported in that in vivo reprogramming is enhanced by the pre-existence of tissue injury which provides key factors, such as interleukin IL-6, that promote cell plasticity. Now, the focus of his laboratory is to apply their knowledge on senescence and reprogramming to degenerative diseases such as lung, kidney and heart fibrosis.