Gabriel Ocaña Santero

Gabriel Ocana-Santero did his BSc in Biochemistry at the Autonomous University of Madrid (2016-2020, Spain). Gabriel profited the summers of his BSc to do research stays abroad under ERASMUS+ scholarships. In his sophomore year, Gabriel went to the Medical University of Vienna (Austria) to conduct a project in pancreatic cancer metastasis using a cell culture model in Dr. Paola Martinelli´s laboratory. One year later, Gabriel spent the summer in Karolinska Institute (Sweden), characterizing the role of a microprotein involved in muscle injury, working in Dr. Jorge Ruas´s laboratory. Then, at the start of his senior year, he went to Boston University (USA) with a UAM-BU study abroad scholarship. There, he worked on an electrophysiological project on the crayfish neuromuscular junction with the supervision of Professor Jen-Wei Lin. After this stay, Gabriel came back to Spain to finish his Bachelor with a research project, in Javier Diaz-Nido´s laboratory, implementing gene therapy in a murine model of Friedreich’s Ataxia.

In 2020, Gabriel enrolled in Oxford University´s MSc in Neuroscience (Oxford, UK) funded by a “la Caixa” scholarship for postgraduate studies in Europe. During this year, Gabriel worked in Dr. Adam Packer´s laboratory investigating the developmental timeline of claustrocortical connectivity. Then, he worked in Professor Andrew King´s group focusing on the role of the midbrain in encoding auditory novelty detection. In 2021, Gabriel decided to stay in Oxford and pursue a DPhil in Pharmacology under the supervision of professors Trevor Sharp, Simon Butt and Adam Packer. This project is funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (Serotonin&Beyond). Gabriel´s project focuses on the physiological and pathological role of serotonin in brain development. Gabriel joined the Oxford constituency of SRUK/CERU during the first year of this DPhil.