Benjamín De La Cruz Thea Email & Phone Number

I am Benjamín, an ever-curious and enthusiast scientist. I sudied Biology in Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina, and did a joint Ph.D. in Biological Sciences between Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and Universität Regensburg in Germany (2017-2022). The main focus of my research during the Ph.D. was Epigenetic mechanisms in phenotypic plasticity, with special focus on RNA biology. Using an in vitro model of cell-to-cell contact-induced smooth muscle cell (SMC) differentiation in human pulmonary artery SMC, I described a novel long non-coding RNA needed for SMC to fully differentiate. In addition, I investigated the role of N6-methyladenosine RNA modification in SMC during cell-to-cell contact-induced differentiation. The research was developed in both the Institute of Medical Research Mercedes and Martín Ferreyra (IMMF-INIMEC-CONICET) in Dr. Prof. Melina M. Musri Lab and the Department of Biochemistry I of the Universität Regensburg in Dr. Prof. Gunter Meister Lab (2016-2022). After obtaining my Ph.D. I started a postdoctoral fellowship in the Institue of Medical Research Mercedes and Martín Ferreyra, in Dr. Prof. Mauricio Martin Lab, shifting my cell model to mice and rat hipocampal and cortical neurons, and studied Cholesterol-dependent epigenetic mechanisms affected during ageing (2022-2023). I recently started a new position in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, located in New York, USA in Dr. Prof. Linda Van Aelst Lab. My current research focus is Chandelier Cells biology in mice. In addition to molecular biology and biochemistry bench skills, I have trained both during my Ph.D. and my Postdoctoral fellowship in Bioinformatics and multivariate statistics. I have experience working with RNA-seq/ChiRP-seq/MS data in both R and Python programming lenguages. I recently obtained a Diploma on Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in Python Lenguage from Universidad de San Martín in Argentina.