Nuclear Receptor Signaling

Scientist/Supervisor: Mercedes Ricote

Research line 1: Role of nuclear receptors in cardiac homeostasis and disease.

Summary: The heart needs a constant supply of energy to maintain cardiac contraction. It can oxidize a wide variety of substrates to produce ATP. However, the transcriptional mechanisms that control cardiac metabolism remain poorly understood. In this project, we will focus on the role of the nuclear receptor Retinoid X Receptor (RXR) in cardiac homeostasis. We will use tissue-specific knockouts, metabolomics, in vivo advance imaging, and the latest techniques in omics (RNA-seq, ChIP-seq and ATAC-seq) to unravel the role of this transcription factor in heart physiology.

Scientist/Supervisor: Mercedes Ricote

Research line 2: Transcriptional regulation of nuclear receptors in macrophages.

Summary: Our laboratory is using genome wide studies to decipher the contribution of nuclear receptors to the macrophage functions and the pathogenesis of human diseases. The project will focus on analysis of data derived from the application of chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled to massively parallel sequencing (ChIP-Seq) and high throughput transcriptomic data to build pathway models for differentially regulated genes that will help us to define the molecular mechanism of nuclear receptor actions in macrophage biology. The student will need some prior knowledge of R and/or Python programming.