Michele Alves-Bezerra, PhD

Principal Investigator

I started working on Lipid Metabolism in 2006 as an undergraduate research student. I then obtained a Master and a PhD degree in Biochemistry by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 2011 and 2015, respectively. 

From 2015 to 2020, I undertook postdoctoral trainings in the field of Hepatology at the Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA) and Weill Cornell Medical College (New York City, USA), being awarded the NASH Fatty Liver Disease Postdoctoral Research Award by American Liver Foundation (ALF, USA, 2016-2017) and an American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship (AHA, USA, 2018-2020).

In 2020, I became a Junior Group Leader at the Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, USA), being awarded the NIH K01 Research Scientist Development Award by the National Institutes of Health (NIH, USA, 2021-2024) and a Career Development Award by the American Heart Association (AHA, USA, 2020-2023).

In 2022, I moved my group to Spain, where I received a Maria Zambrano Grant by the Spanish Ministry of Universities & European Union – NextGenerationEU (2022-2023) and an EMERGIA Grant by the Andalusian Government (2023-2027).

My research interests are to identify relevant pathways involved in the progression of NAFLD and to manipulate these pathways in order to mitigate the disease.

María Antonia Mateo Marín

PHD STUDENT

María Antonia received her BSc degree in Biotechnology from the University of Cadiz (Spain) in 2022. As an undergraduate research student, she was awarded a Santander Research Fellowship (2021-2022), the 2022 Student´s Excellence Award, and the 2022 Undergraduate Thesis Award. She then obtained a Master’s degree in Biomedicine from University of Cadiz in 2023. As a Master research student, Maria Antonia awarded a University of Cadiz Research Fellowship (2022-2023) and the 2023 Master Thesis Award.

María Antonia joined the Lipid Lab in December 2023 to elucidate the role of de novo lipogenesis in the progression of MASLDand to determine whether this pathway can be targeted for the treatment of the disease. 

Daniel palenque blanco

PHD STUDENT CANDIDATE

Daniel obtained a high school degree as a Clinical and Biomedical Laboratory technician in 2019. He then continued his studies and obtained a BSc degree in Biology from the University of Malaga (Spain) in 2023 and a Master’s degree in Biotechnology from the University of Cadiz in 2024. He is now applying for the PhD program in Biomolecules and Biomedicine at the University of Cadiz to fully advance his research training.

Daniel joined the Lipid Lab in December of 2023 and, since then, he investigates the role of acyl-CoA synthetases in lipoprotein metabolism and cardiovascular diseases.

PASAND GDRI

MASTER STUDENT

Originally from Iran, Pasand has studied abroad for several years. She started her career as an undergraduate student in Pharmaceutical Chemist Biology in Mexico but, as time went by, her interests shifted towards Biology and led her to enroll in a Biology major at the Universidad de la Republica in Uruguay. Later on, she obtained a BS degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology in Iran. As she advanced in her studies, she became deeply interested in human health. This motivated her to pursue a Master degree in Biomedicine at the University of Cadiz. Pasand joined the Lipid Lab in January 2025 to investigate the effect of dietary interventions on markers of cardiometabolic health in patients at the Puerta del Mar University Hospital (University of Cadiz).

Oscar Chacón González

Undergraduate STUDENT

Oscar is in his senior year of the Biotechnology BS major at the University of Cadiz. Since 2022, he is an active collaborator and member of the Andalusian Association of Biotechnologists (AsBAn), where he has participated in initiatives such as Biotechnofarm. He has a broad interested in biotechnology, bioinformatics and human biochemistry & genetics. Oscar joined the Lipid Lab in January 2025 to help generating knockout mouse models via CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology in order to investigate the role of de novo fatty acid synthesis in MASLD.