Aina LLUCH BALAÑA
Postoctoral Researcher, Institute for Tumor Immunology, Philipps University of Marburg
I am at the end of my PhD (at least I hope ;-) ), focusing on melanoma in my research. As I have some food intolerances, I started to be very interested by dietetics and nutrition - and I am starting with a bachelor program in this field in September 2025.
Otherwise, I am a lot into dancing and sporting (climbing, hiking, snowboarding, running, yoga,...), I usually need a lot of physical activity, both indoors and outdoors. I am a scout and I love being in the nature. During my studies (and thanks to Erasmus), I've been living in Bergen (Norway), Rome, and Pisa (both in Italy).
Our lab uses genetically modified mouse models and a combination of cell biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry techniques to study the role of altered mitochondrial dysfunction and metabolism in human diseases. A primary analytical tool of the group is metabolomics, which enables the parallel quantification of hundreds of small molecule metabolites. The team also uses computational approaches to integrate datasets from multi-dimensional analyses, including metabolomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics, with the aim to model aging-related disorders and to generate mechanistic hypotheses that will be cross validated experimentally.
