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What is NEUROFAN?
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WHAT IS NEUROFAN?

The Neuropharmacology of Addictions and Degenerative Disorders (NEUROFAN) group at San Pablo CEU University is a consolidated research group led by Gonzalo Herradón.

The NEUROFAN group carries out all the phases of identifying new biomarkers and therapeutic targets in diseases of the central nervous system, such as addictive disorders or neurodegenerative diseases, as well as the preclinical validation of new compounds with therapeutic potential. Our goal is to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in drug addiction and neurodegenerative diseases or diseases that occur with neurodegeneration such as alcoholism. A common mechanism in this type of pathology is neuroinflammation, which, when it becomes chronic, aggravates neurodegenerative processes. Therefore, we have a great interest in studying the mechanisms that trigger neuroinflammation and perpetuate it. This has led us to discover new targets in neuroinflammation and to study their pharmacological modulation as a new therapeutic strategy in multiple diseases that occur with neuroinflammatory processes.

WHO ARE WE?

Gonzalo Herradón Gil-Gallardo

Principal Investigator / Dean, School of Pharmacy / Professor in Pharmacology

Researcher ID / ORCID: C-8305-2012/0000-0002-1578-3744

Gonzalo Herradón is a Full Professor in Pharmacology and head of the Neuropharmacology of addictions and degenerative disorders group (NEUROFAN) at University CEU San Pablo. His investigations has led to the production of 70+ articles and 1823 citations, which results in h index = 27 (Google Scholar). Dr. Herradón has worked both in academia and in industry with international experience. He obtained his PhD in Pharmacology in 2003 at University CEU San Pablo. He was a Research Investigator in the department of Neurobiology at Millennium Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA, 1 year), where he worked in the discovery of new targets for neuropathic pain using different rat strains with different sensitivities to neuropathic pain and applying OMICs. The targets uncovered were published in 3 peer-reviewed publications. Then, he moved to the Molecular and Experimental Medicine department at The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, CA, USA) for a 3-year postdoctoral training. His hosting group, led by Dr. Thomas Deuel, trained him in a wide variety of molecular biology techniques that served GH to elucidate different signaling pathways triggered by pleiotrophin (PTN), discoveries that were published in 10 manuscripts in journals like PNAS and BBRC. He is currently the head of the area of Pharmacology and PI of NEUROFAN, a highly competitive group that is interconnected to national research entities, as it belongs to the Spanish Research Network in Addictions Care (RIAPAd), awarded in the last call (2021) of Cooperative Research Networks Oriented to Results in Health (RICORS), of the Carlos III Health Institute and the Ministry of Science and Innovation. GH has been PI of 7 competitive projects funded by the Spanish national agencies.

Luis Fernando Alguacil merino

Professor in Pharmacology

Researcher ID / ORCID: J-6466-2016 / 0000-0002-2542-5983

Luis Fernando Alguacil has a degree in Biological Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid and a PhD from the University of Alcalá. He began his professional activity in the Research Division of Juste Laboratories (Madrid) and later at the Justesa Imagen Research Center (Juste/Schering AG joint venture), being director of its Pharmacology department between 1992 and 1995. In the latter year He joined the CEU San Pablo University, where he has directed several departments and is currently Professor of Pharmacology (accredited by ANECA), Director of the IEA-CEU University Institute of Addiction Studies and Assistant to the Vice-Rector for Teaching and Research. He has also been Associate Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Alcalá (1990-1994), Visiting Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina (Charleston, USA, 2002) and Coordinator of the Translational Research Unit at the Hospital General Universitario de Ciudad Real. (2009-2012). He has been Editor of the Neurosciences Section of the Journal of Translational Medicine since 2015. He has participated in competitive basic and translational research projects at the regional, national and international levels, in most cases as principal investigator, as well as in research contracts and agreements between the university and the pharmaceutical industry. In 2008 he received the Ángel Herrera Award from the San Pablo CEU University Foundation for the best research work in Experimental Sciences. The main scientific contributions of Dr. Alguacil are located in the areas of Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology, especially in relation to the biological bases and treatment of pain and addictive disorders.

Carmen Pérez García

Professor in Pharmacology

Researcher ID / ORCID: 0000-0003-4441-0071

Carmen Perez-Garcia received a Pharmacy degree from the Complutense University of Madrid (1994). In 1995, she obtained a COMETT grant from the EU for a traineeship stay at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel (Switzerland). In 1996, she awarded a Research and Teaching scholarship from San Pablo CEU University (Madrid) and she joined the department of Pharmacology where she obtained her PhD in 1999. Currently she is a Professor in Pharmacology at San Pablo CEU University. Since 2013, she is also Vice-Dean for Teaching, Students and Internationalization at the School of Pharmacy at San Pablo CEU University. Her research career began in 1995 in the group of Prof. Luis Fernando Alguacil and was focused on the study of the effects mediated by the histamine H3 receptors in the Central Nervous System; she described for the first time the role of these receptors in anxiety, depression, and drug addiction. Later she also contributed to describe the role of alpha-2 receptors in the effects produced by opioids. In 2003, and after a stay at the Mass Spectrometry Laboratory of the Department of Neurology at the University of Tennessee, she introduced Proteomics techniques to her line of research as a mean to discover new biomarkers of drug addiction vulnerability. In 2009, she started a collaboration with Dr. Gonzalo Herradón to use Proteomics for the study of the role of the cytokines pleiotrophin and midkine in the central nervous system, especially in relation to the neurotoxicity produced by drugs of abuse. She has co-directed 12 editions of the postgraduate course “Pharmacology of Drugs of Abuse”, accredited by the Commission for Continuing Education of the Health Professions of the Community of Madrid-National Health System. She has also organized workshops on drug addiction in the last 10 editions of the “Science and Innovation Week” of the Community of Madrid.

Carmen González Martín

Professor in Toxicology

Researcher ID / ORCID: E-7029-2017/0000-0002-9842-2273

Carmen González Martín has a degree and a PhD in Biological Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid and a Law Degree from UNED. She has been a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cantabria (1981-89); She was an associate doctor at the Cajal Neurobiology Institute (CSIC) (1989-1991) and head of the Department of Toxicology at Juste-Schering Pharmaceutical Laboratories (1991-2003). Since 1995 she is included, by curriculum, in the European Register of Toxicologists. In 2003 she entered the San Pablo CEU University, currently being a professor and head of the toxicology area and teaching undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. During this time, she has carried out two research stays, as Visiting Professor at the Free University of Brussels and as Senior Researcher of the Translational Research Unit of the Hospital General Universitario Ciudad Real. Her lines of research have focused on the neurotoxicity of antitumor drugs, preclinical research on contrast media for radiodiagnosis, and the neurobiology of pain. Currently, the projects in which she participates are based on the search for biomarkers of addictive vulnerability in smoking, alcoholism, cocaine use and eating disorders, collaborating with both university and hospital groups, using in vivo and in vitro methods. She is the Ángel Herrera Award for the best research work of a group of professors at USP-CEU (2006-2007) and for her scientific work she has obtained 4 six-year research periods (CNEAI). Since 2012, she has been a member of the USP-CEU Research Ethics Committee, currently chairing its permanent committee.

Esther Gramage Caro

Senior lecturer

Researcher ID / ORCID: K-6441-2014 / 0000-0002-5134-1273

Esther Gramage is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmacy at San Pablo CEU University. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Pharmacology Laboratory of San Pablo CEU University. She did a research placement at the University of Roehampton (London, UK), and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI, USA). Her scientific career focuses on the study of the cytokines Pleiotrophin (PTN) and Midkine (MK) in different pathologies of the Nervous System with a common neuroinflammatory component, with the long-term goal of being able to intervene pharmacologically in the PTN signaling pathway and MK for the treatment of these diseases. She has published more than 30 articles in scientific journals, has co-supervised a doctoral thesis and has recognized two six-year research periods. She received the Alcalíber Award from the Royal National Academy of Pharmacy for the best work on "Analgesia and opiates" and the Extraordinary Award for the best Doctoral Thesis from the Faculty of Pharmacy of San Pablo CEU University.

Maria José Polanco Mora

Senior lecturer

Researcher ID / ORCID: 6602618377 / 0000-0001-8755-3166

María José Polanco, PhD in Pharmacology (USP-CEU, 2011). During her doctorate, she studied the interaction between δ-opioid and α2B-adrenergic receptors in the central nervous system, by analyzing the effects of morphine and yohimbine on neuronal cells. She did two post-doctoral placements from 2011-2013 at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa, Italy and from 2013-2017 at the Center for Integrative Biology (CIBIO) in Trento, Italy. In the neuromuscular diseases laboratory, she specialized in the study of the pathogenic mechanisms that cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Kennedy's disease (ABMA).

Marta del Campo Millán

Researcher

Researcher ID / ORCID: K-5405-2016/0000-0003-2808-3699

Dr. del Campo is a translational neurobiologist. Her main scientific interest is to understand the biological changes that underlie the different dementia types and translate this knowledge into applicable diagnostic tests and potential therapeutic targets. The complexity of dementia has prompted her to initiate and co-lead highly collaborative studies that analyze the proteome in different biofluids from patients with different dementia types at different stages (PRIDE and bPRIDE projects); and identify, develop, and validate biomarker panels that might be useful in clinical settings and trials. By combining -omics data and using different experimental models, she aims also to identify pathways and molecules that might involve in the pathogenesis of the different dementia types. Dr. del Campo is also the head of the Fluid Biomarker Facility at the BarcelonaBeta Brain Research Center at Fundación Pasqual Maragall.

Carmen Ovejero Benito

Lecturer in Pharmacology

Researcher ID / ORCID: 0000-0003-4082-5165

Carmen Ovejero Benito has a degree in Biochemistry from the Complutense University of Madrid and a doctorate in Neuroscience from the Autonomous University of Madrid. During her predoctoral stage she made a placement at the University of New York. She carried out a postdoctoral placement at the University of Valencia. She then spent 4 years in the Clinical Pharmacology Service of Hospital Universitario de La Princesa as a postdoctoral researcher. Last year she joined the NEUROFAN group as a teacher and researcher.

Marta Vicente Rodríguez

Lecturer in Pharmacology

Researcher ID / ORCID: 0000-0002-4426-5161

Marta Vicente Rodríguez completed her PhD in Pharmacology with international mention from San Pablo CEU University in 2017. During her PhD studies she extensively characterized Pleiotrophin (PTN) and Midkine (MK) in the context of amphetamine and alcohol drug addiction and its contribution on the neuroinflammatory processes involved in these disorders. During her doctoral studies, she carried out two international placements, in the laboratory of Dr. Alexis Bailey at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, in 2015 and in the laboratory of Dr. Amy W. Lasek at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2016. In 2017, she joined the department of Neuroimaging at King’s College London (London, United Kingdom) and significantly contributed as a postdoctoral researcher to the molecular and cellular characterization of the 18kDa Translocator protein receptor (TSPO), one of the only radioligands most widely used in positron emission tomography (PET) to detect neuroinflammation in humans. During her postdoctoral research period she participated in two international projects, both funded by GlaxoSmithKline and the first one framed in the international NIMA Consortium (Wellcome Trust Consortium for the Neuroimmunology of Mood Disorders and Alzheimer's Disease). She has participated in 4 competitive projects funded by public administrations and published 25 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals with an h-index of 10.