Carlos Sanchez

I started my PhD in 2005 at the Institute of Neurosciences of Alicante (UMH-CSIC) under the supervision of Prof. Beatriz Rico. During this time we revealed a new molecular mechanism through which the neurotrophin BDNF and its receptor TrkB regulate the maturation of GABAergic synapses in the cerebral cortex, involving Ras-ERK, the transcription factor CREB and the gene expression of the GABA synthetic enzyme GAD65 (Sánchez-Huertas and Rico, CEREBRAL CORTEX 2011). For a first postdoc I wanted to change subject and I joined the laboratory of Dr. Jens Lüders at IRB Barcelona, who’s lab was investigating microtubule (MT) architecture. However, I soon realized that the work carried on in Dr. Lüders lab could be useful to address unsolved questions in Neurobiology (Sánchez-Huertas and Lüders, CURRENT BIOLOGY 2015). Dr. Lüders’ was not a neuroscience laboratory and I had to set up all the required techniques to do neuroscience research and to work with mice models. Finally we published an article reporting that the tandem formed by the MT nucleator complex γTuRC and the Augmin complex, initially identified in mitotic cells, was essential for neuron morphogenesis and microtubule organization in a centrosome-independent manner. Importantly, we also reported that within the axons the augmin complex ensures the typical uniform plus-end out orientation of microtubules (Sánchez-Huertas et al. NATURE COMMUNICATIONS 2016). This study was picked up by F1000 and highlighted as an important new finding in the field. This work is currently being continued by other researchers in the laboratory. Then, I decided to expand my knowledge in this subject and joined the laboratory of Prof. Anne Debant at the CRBM Montpellier (CNRS), a leader lab in the field, to deep on the mechanisms controlling axon growth. There I found that the protein NAV1 crosslink microtubules with actin fibers, stabilizing simultaneously both MTs and actin fibers to compact the growth cone while the axon grows. We demonstrated that NAV1 is essential in axon pathfinding because it governs the attractive response of the guidance protein Netrin-1 in the growth cone, and controls the navigation of cortical neurons in vivo (Sánchez-Huertas et al. JOURNAL OF CELL BIOLOGY 2020). I originally conceived this story and have carried out most of the experiments in this paper. Therefore, I am first and corresponding author in this article. In May 2019 I started a short postdoctoral stay in the lab of Dr. Victoria Moreno (CIPF, Valencia) to learn about the causes and mechanisms of axon stalling after injury and be trained in spinal cord and brain surgery in rodents. In June 2020, I got funded by the Postdoctoral Severo Ochoa Programme (CSIC) to join the lab of Dr. Eloisa Herrera at the IN (CSIC-UMH) and develop my own project on the cytoskeletal mediators of axonal navigation during regeneration after injury. Along my career I have presented 10 scientific communications in international and national meetings, including 4 talks. I have been invited lecturer at the Universities of Barcelona, Montpellier and Politécnica of Valencia, participated in scientific advisory activities in high-schools (Declics) and I have also supervised 5 master students and 3 PhD students. I also had a short professional experience (may-august, 2019) in the company Inspiralia as innovation consultant (two phase-2 projected submitted to the SME instrument -H2020-).