Large-scale functional genomics ​

The group has been involved in some of the most relevant functional genomics projects carried out during the past years. These include the ENCODE, the GTEx and the Blueprint projects, as well as in the Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia (CLL) Project, the Spanish contribution to the International Cancer Genome Consortium. Through our participation in these projects, we have contributed to an increased understanding of the human transcriptome in health and disease. Our work revealed the pervasive nature of transcription in the human genome, the large component of unspecificity in tissue transcriptomes, the relatively small contribution of post-transcriptional regulation into the cellular abundances of RNA species, and led to the discovery of two major transcriptional types within CLL, among others.

Recently, we investigated the effect of death and the post-mortem interval in tissue transcriptomes, and we are now investigating the impact of circadian and circannual rhythms. We recently became partners of PrecisionTox, a collaboration of 15 institutions to investigate the toxicity of hundreds of chemicals and explore how they disrupt the biological processes that are fundamental to health.