Mikel Lavilla

I did my BSc and MSc in Biology and Biotechnology at the Complutense University of Madrid (2012-2017). In 2017, I joined the PlantLab as an ERASMUS+ trainee, after which I was granted a postgraduate fellowship. In 2018, I entered the PhD programme in Agrobiosciences of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna.

• M.L. Puerta et al., A ratiometric sensor based on plant N-terminal degrons able to report oxygen dynamics in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J. Mol. Biol., 431, 2810-2820 (2019).
• N. Masson et al., Conserved N-terminal cysteine dioxygenases transduce responses to hypoxia in animals and plants. Science 365, 65–69 (2019).
• M.D. White et al., Structures of Arabidopsis thaliana oxygen-sensing plant cysteine oxidases 4 and 5 enable targeted manipulation of their activity. PNAS 37, 140-147 (2020).

I am studying the hypoxia signalling mechanisms present in higher eukaryots using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism. My research activities rely on the use of synthetic biology to deliver and assemble the components of the Cysteine N-Degron Pathway from plants and animals in yeast. This way, I aim at creating and establishing an orthogonal platform to better understand low-oxygen perception.