Profile

I’ve loved animals, plants, and forests all my life. The crazy shapes and forms of different species always fascinated me and fed my curiosity. When I was little, I did a lot of camping in jungles and snorkeling in coral reefs, and I’ve kept at it ever since! I was born in the Caribbean, in the Spanish-speaking island of Puerto Rico, and there was no lack for amazement amongst the turquoise beaches and emerald forests, where I liked to spend most of my free time. I moved to Switzerland to do research for the first time, and there I found a completely new world of amazing nature. Mountains, huge waterfalls, beautiful, dense forests, crystal-clear alpine waters. I also learnt to sail in Switzerland, in one of its large Alpine lakes, Lake Geneva.

I went to university right after high school to study Biology, where I fell in love with genetics and evolution in my fourth and last year of studies. I then went on to do a 2 year masters in Switzerland, working with catfish that grow teeth on their bodies, a subject that I continued to work with throughout my PhD, which I finished in the same university and the same laboratory.

Research was for me a way to further investigate really interesting animals and questions. It also brought me close to other like-minded “nerds” who were also fascinated by animals and their way of evolving through time. The specific question of how a common aquarium fish ended up growing teeth on their bodies was simply a way to feed my curiosity, as well as a way to expand my horizons and move to new places and meet new people.

If we imagine the genome as a set of instructions – a recipe book – for how to build an organism, each recipe could be likened to a “gene”. It will, in itself not build an entire organism, but most are very important for producing the complete big picture. Some of these recipes borrow from others. Say, the recipe for making chips and the recipe for deep-frying haddock in batter can be combined to form the recipe for fish and chips. It is very similar in living organisms, and many genes work together in wonderful coordination, resulting in the stagerring diversity of living beings that currently exist, live and thrive. The big difference between the genome and the recipe book is that the genome is constantly changing through the generations, as if the recipes were changing through time, a thing that -luckily- usually doesn’t happen with recipe books.

When new features emerge in evolution, like a new recipe that borrows from many other recipes, they leave a mark in how the genes of an entire organism evolve. I’m now looking at a dramatic change that animals underwent: developing a nervous system. This opened many new avenues, as they were able to have quick feedback and responses from their environment, as well as coordinated movements. The evolution of a nervous system also enabled the possibility of developing eyes, ears, and many other sensory structures, and they also left their mark in how the animal genes evolved. Following the comparison with the book, the emergence of a recipe for a “nervous system” allowed  new recipes to be added.

The first part of my project involves looking in detail into many genomes of animals to try and find which genes are used in common among all, when building the nervous system. That will then allow me to find the “base recipe” for the animal nervous system, and by tracing its changes in the past, identify when did the first animal had the ingredients and instructions for that very important recipe.

I’m usually woken up by my baby at around 7 am, and depending on the day I would go for a 30 min swim at the university pool or just spend time with my daughter. Once swimming/daughter-daddy time is over, I prepare a good breakfast and a coffee, and drink plenty of water. By 9 I must already be at my (home) office, where I spend the morning getting any important datasets that I may need, or answering emails. 12 is lunchtime with my wife and daughter, after which I return to my desk and finish up any remaining tasks for the day. About 30 mins before I finish work (so, at about 4:30 pm), I get a notepad and write in detail all the things I did during the day, anything important that I learnt, and what needs to be done the next day. Then it’s free time at home!