About me

I am a PhD student of Prof. Mihaela Pavlicev. The goal of my project is to obtain a comparative cell type inventory and to assess cell-cell communication at the fetal-maternal interface by using different animal models. By doing this we hope to gain some insights into the mechanistic basis of placental invasiveness and on how this phenotype has evolved. Of particular concern is how the epithelial-stromal dialogue in the endometrium and the regulation of the immune response relate to different degrees of invasiveness. We are also interested in the co-evolution of the ovarian cycle and pregnancy. I am currently trying to understand how the evolutionary changes and novelties that pregnancy has entailed could have affected the ovarian cycle and vice versa. As my academic background comprises both biology and philosophy, I still maintain a collaboration with the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Complutense University of Madrid. In particular, I am working with Laura Nuño de la Rosa on the ways in which the female body has been portrayed in contemporary evolutionary biology.