Daniel de la Nava

Clínica Universidad de Navarra
Pamplona, Navarra, Spain

My name is Daniel de la Nava, and I am a PhD Student in Advanced therapies for Pediatric Solid Tumors lab (Pamplona, Spain), directed by Dr. Marta Alonso. I studied Biochemistry from the University of Castilla-La Mancha, with a Master´s Degree on Biomedicine and Molecular Oncology from the University of Oviedo. During my degree formation, I had the opportunity to participate in different competitive programs. First of all, I participated in Laboratory Practice Programme from Scientific Foundation of Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) where I studied some aspects about cancer and metabolism. Then I obtained a Collaboration Grant, offered by Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (MECD) where I studied the relationship between chemoresistance and neuroblastoma. When I finished my degree, I got a very competitive fellowship, The Summer Training Programme offered by Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), an international grant where I studied unknown metabolism signaling using transgenic mice. After that, during my master´s degree I studied the implication of some epigenetics proteins in gliomas. Finally, I got a Formation Fellowship to learn to manage the zebrafish model.
Currently, I am doing my PhD in Marta Alonso´s laboratory group at Clínica Universidad de Navarra with a national PFIS fellowship. Our group tests novel, alternative treatments for, principally, pediatric solid tumors, such as osteosarcoma or high-grade gliomas (pHGG), including or diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). Specifically about my project, I am trying testing the combination of Delta-24-RGD, an oncolytic adenovirus, with ONC201, a promising drug in the field.
I consider that doing my PhD in pediatric neuro-oncology in my current lab was the right step in my scientific career, and could give me the necessary knowledge and competences on it. For all I have metioned above, I think I can contribute positively in this passionate research field.