Gemma Llargués Sistac

Gemma Llargués completed her PhD in Paediatric Oncology at Newcastle University (UK), focusing on the identification of new therapies for paediatric brain cancer. She subsequently spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in the Childhood Brain Cancer research group led by Prof. Steve Clifford, where she identified new therapeutic targets for the development of treatments directed at a specific subgroup of medulloblastoma.

In 2022 she joined the Genetic Predisposition to Gastrointestinal Cancer team led by Dr. Sergi Castellví at the August Pi i Sunyer Institute of Biomedical Research (IDIBAPS) at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. During this period she specialised in the development of new genome editing strategies for the functional characterization of candidate genes involved in the predisposition to early-onset gastrointestinal cancer.

Currently, he is part of the new transversal research program in pediatric hematological cancers promoted by the Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu (IRSJD) and the Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute (IJC). As a specialist in molecular biology, he supports the different groups of the program in the design and implementation of genomic and functional strategies. The program aims to decipher the mechanisms of initiation and relapse of pediatric leukemias and develop new immunotherapies and academic clinical trials that allow to improve the prognosis of patients with high-risk disease.