JOAQUÍN ARAOS

Joaquín studied Biochemistry at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His undergraduate thesis was focused on the control of intracellular pH in ovarian cancer cells. During this time, he also carried out two short research internships at the laboratories of Jan-Luuk Hillebrands and Jens Kroll at the University of Groningen and at the University of Heidelberg, respectively. 

 

After completing his undergraduate degree, Joaquín was awarded an Erasmus Mundus Joint master’s degree scholarship to join the International Master in Innovative Medicine (IMIM) programme, where he carried out of his master’s degrees at Heidelberg and Uppsala Universities. As part of the IMIM programme, he carried out a research project at Katja Breitkopf-Heinlein laboratory (Heidelberg) focusing on the role of the BMP-9 signalling pathway on the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition of hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Later, he joined the laboratory of Theresa Vincent (Uppsala) for a research project where he investigated the role of ribosome biogenesis on proneural-to-mesenchymal transition of glioblastoma cells. 

 

Joaquín was awarded the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate scholarship to pursue his doctoral studies at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute under the supervision of Dr Giulia Biffi. His doctoral project focused on characterising the impact of ageing on the malignant-to-stromal crosstalk in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. 

 

Outside of the lab, Joaquín enjoys playing and listening to music, photography and trying new cooking recipes. 

 

Selected publications

 

Mucciolo G*, Araos Henríquez J*, Jihad M, Pinto Teles S, Manansala J, Li W, Ashworth S, Cheng P SW, Lloyd E G., Luo W, Anand A, Sawle A, Piskorz A, Biffi G. EGFR-activated myofibroblasts promote metastasis of pancreatic cancer. Cancer Cell; 2024.

*Equal contribution

 

Lloyd E G., Araos Henríquez J, Biffi G. Modelling pancreatic cancer: from patients

to pre-clinical models and back. Dis Model Mech; 2024.

 

Araos J, Sleeman JP, Garvalov BK. The Role of Hypoxic Signalling in Metastasis: Towards

Translating Knowledge of Basic Biology into Novel Anti-Tumour Strategies. Clin Exp

Metastasis; 2018. 

 

Araos J, Silva L, Salsoso R, Sáez T, Barros E, Toledo F, Gutiérrez J, Pardo F,

Chiarello DI, Leiva A, Sanhueza C, Sobrevia L. Intracellular and extracellular pH dy-

namics in the human placenta from diabetes mellitus. Placenta; 2016.

 

Sanhueza C, Araos J, Naranjo L, Toledo F, Beltrán AR, Ramírez MA, Gutiérrez J, Pardo

F, Leiva A, Sobrevia L. Sodium/proton exchanger isoform 1 regulates intracellular pH and

cell proliferation in human ovarian cancer. Biochim Biophys Acta; 2017.