Laura Rodriguez de la Ballina

Academic interests

Summary:

As part of the Autophagy group my work aims at unveiling the molecular mechanisms of autophagy. My specific research interest revolves around lipid-binding proteins and their role in human disease. The final goal of the project is to identify novel targets for the generation of future therapeutics of autophagy related diseases.

Main interests:

• Autophagy
• Protein homeostasis
• Neurodegenerative disease
• Myopathies
• Mechanotransduction

Education

• 2004-2011: PhD degree in Biochemistry at the Universitat de Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain).
• 2004-2006: DEA in Biomedicine at the Universitat de Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain).
• 2002-2004: DEA in Biomedical Science at the Université de Liège (Liege, Belgium).
• 1998-2002: Degree in Biochemistry at the Universidad de Oviedo (Oviedo, Spain).

Awards

• 2016-2019: Scientia Fellows Fellowship, University of Oslo - Marie Curie Actions.
• 2005-2009: FPU (Formación profesorado universtario) fellowship, Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.
• 2008: Fellowship for short-term stay at a Foreign Institution, Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.
• 2004: BRD (Beca de formació en recerca i docència) grant, Universitat de Barcelona.
• 2003: Fondation Bonjean-Oleffe Award, Belgium.
• 2002-2004: Grant FNRS-Télévie, Belgium.

Positions held

• 2016-present: Scientia Fellows postdoc at Institute of Basic Medical Sciences (Oslo, Norway) at the Autophagy group, Pr. Anne Simonsen.
• 2014-2016: Researcher at Institute of Research in Biomedicine, Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain) at Laboratory of Amino acid transporters and disease Pr. M. Palacín.
• 2011-2014: Postdoctoral fellow at Institute of Research on Cancer and Ageing, Nice (IRCAN) (Nice, France). Laboratory of Dr. Chloé Féral.
• 2004-2011: PhD student at Institute of Research in Biomedicine, Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain) Laboratory of Molecular pathology and therapy in heterogenic and multigenic diseases Pr. M. Palacín.
• 2008: Visiting student University of California San Diego UCSD (La Jolla, CA, USA) Short stay at Pr. Mark Ginsberg’s Lab.
• 2002-2004: Researcher at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège (Liege, Belgium) LBTD (Laboratory of Tumor and Development Biology) Pr. J-M. Foidart and Pr. A. Noël.
• 2002: Visiting student at Turun Yliopisto (Turku, Finland) Laboratory of ABE (Antibiotic Biosynthetic Enzymes) Pr. P. Mäntsälä and Dr. J. Niemi.

Publications

• DE LA BALLINA, L.R., DE GARAY HERRERA, T., FÉRAL, C.C., AND PALACÍN, M. (2018) SLC3A2. In: Choi S (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules, 2^nd edition. Springer, Cham. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4.
• HERNÁNDEZ-ALVAREZ M.I., DIAZ-RAMOS A., BERDASCO M., COBB J., PLANET E., COOPER D., PAZDERSKA A., WANIC K., O'HANLON D., GOMEZ A., DE LA BALLINA, L.R., ESTELLER M., PALACIN M., O'GORMAN D.J., NOLAN J.J., ZORZANO A.. Early-onset and classical forms of type 2 diabetes show impaired expression of genes involved in muscle branched-chain amino acid metabolism. Sci. Rep. 2017 Oct 23;7(1):13850. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-14120-6.
• CORMERAIS Y., GIULIANO S., LEFLOCH R., FRONT B., DURIVAULT J., TAMBUTTÉ E., MASSARD P.A., DE LA BALLINA L.R., ENDOU H., WEMPE M.F., PALACIN M., PARKS S.K., AND POUYSSEGUR J. Genetic disruption of the multifunctional CD98/LAT1 complex demonstrates the key role of essential amino acid transport in the control of mTORC1 and tumor growth. Cancer Research (2016) Aug 1;76(15):4481-92. doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-15-3376. 
• DE LA BALLINA, L.R., CANO-CRESPO, S., GONZÁLEZ-MUÑOZ, E., BIAL, S., ESTRACH, S., CAILLETEAU, L., TISSOT, F., DANIEL, H., ZORZANO, A., GINSBERG, M.H., PALACÍN, M., AND FÉRAL, C.C. Amino acid transport associated to cluster of differentiation 98 heavy chain (CD98hc) is at the crossroad of oxidative stress and amino acid availability. J Biol Chem 91(18):9700-11 (2016).
• FORT, J.*, DE LA BALLINA, L.R.*, BURGHARDT, H. E., FERRER-COSTA, C., TURNAY, J., FERRER-ORTA, C., USÓN, I., ZORZANO, A., FERNÁNDEZ-RECIO, J., OROZCO, M., LIZARBE, M. A., FITA, I., AND PALACÍN, M. The structure of human 4F2hc ectodomain provides a model for homodimerization and electrostatic interaction with plasma membrane. J Biol Chem 282, 31444-31452 (2007). * These authors contributed equally to this work.
• MASSON, V.*, DE LA BALLINA, L.R.*, MUNAUT, C., WIELOCKX, B., JOST, M., MAILLARD, C., BLACHER, S., BAJOU, K., ITOH, T., ITOHARA, S., WERB, Z., LIBERT, C., FOIDART, J. M., AND NOËL, A. Contribution of host MMP-2 and MMP-9 to promote tumor vascularization and invasion of malignant keratinocytes. FASEB J 19, 234-236 (2005). * These authors contributed equally to this work.

Links of interest

Scientia Fellows Programme

Nordic Autophagy Network

Norwegian Research Council

European Research Council