Diana Martínez Saucedo, PhD

My goal is to develop novel therapies for pancreatic cancer by understanding how alternative splicing drives antitumor immunity and serves as a potential therapeutic target.

I earned my Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). My research projects aimed to elucidate pathways and mechanisms associated with anti-inflammatory M2-macrophages to reduce the inflammatory process. During my Ph.D., I discovered that microRNAs are crucial to reducing the expression of inflammatory mediators in macrophages and inducing the expression of M2-associated molecules. This finding suggests reprogramming macrophages through the identified pathways can guide the development of new therapies across inflammatory pathologies in MS, and diabetes type 1, among others.

This understanding of post-transcriptional events' impact on cells motivated me to study the role of alternative splicing in one of the most aggressive and therapeutically resistant cancers: Pancreatic cancer. Understanding the microenvironment of the tumors, tumor cell interaction with the immune system, and the role of splicing in these contexts is crucial to develop better therapeutic approaches.

Postdoctoral Fellowship: Leslie Warner, Yale Cancer Center.