Raúl Méndez

Raúl Méndez
Institut de Recerca Biomèdica (IRB Barcelona), Barcelona
Project Leader

Post-transcriptional gene regulation reprogramming in obesity-driven liver cancer.

Liver cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide and treatment options are extremely limited. Its incidence is rising rapidly, linked to the global epidemic of obesity and the aging of the population. Liver metabolic adaptation to high fat diet and the microenvironment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) activate the integrated stress response (ISR). However, obesity and cancer generate a “chronic” stress to which the liver must adapt. We have unraveled a unique and previously unrecognized chronic ISR program that protects liver cells from high fat diet and aging induced stress. Our results indicate that this circadian-chronic-ISR is also antitumoral while allowing translational reprogramming that permits simultaneous hepatocyte cell division and differentiation and promotes liver regeneration. Disruption of this chronic branch of ISR leads to hepatic steatosis, increased liver damage and HCC.

Raúl Méndez has been a Group Leader at the Institut de Recerca Biomèdica (IRB Barcelona) and ICREA Research Professor, for more than a decade. He is also an EMBO member since 2012.

His research has focused on how mRNAs are translated into proteins and how this process is regulated during cell division and differentiation.

Before he joined the IRB Barcelona, he worked at the Centre de Regulació Genòmica of Barcelona as a group leader.

Méndez studied biochemistry in the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He obtained his PhD for the work carried out at the Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa under the supervision of César de Haro. He did postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Robert E. Rhoads at the Louisiana State University Medical Center and then in the laboratory of Joel D. Richter (1997-2001) at the University of Massachusetts. (Read full CV).

To understand the molecular mechanisms that dictate alternative 3' UTR formation and the temporal and spatial translational control of specific mRNAs during cell cycle progression and chromosome segregation, senescence and related pathologies. Cell cycle progression is programmed, at least in part, by stored silent mRNAs whose translation is specifically regulated by sequences located at their 3´-untranslated regions (3´-UTRs) and their binding proteins. Our work in the past years has focused on three main questions:

1. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying the translational control by cytoplasmic polyadenylation cis-acting elements and trans-acting factors.

2. To define how this translational control circuit regulates cell cycle progression by establishing a molecular circuit, stabilized by positive and negative feed-back loops.

3. To explore the contribution of these mechanisms in the reprogramming of gene expression in cancer.

Institut de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona
Department: Molecular Medicine
Parc Científic de Barcelona
C/ Baldiri Reixac, 10
08028 Barcelona
Tel.: (+34) 93 403 19 00

Email: [email protected]