THE PEOPLE
Different expertise, backgrounds and personalities come together here. Together, we investigate how animals emerged from a unicellular world.
CO-LEADERSHIP
Elena leads the development of emerging experimental systems. Her work connects genetic tools, cell biology and the diversity of unconventional organisms to make previously inaccessible evolutionary questions experimentally tractable.
Email Elena ↗
Iñaki studies the major evolutionary transitions that preceded animals. His work combines discovery, phylogenomics and comparative experimentation to reconstruct the unicellular biology from which animal multicellularity emerged.
Email Iñaki ↗THE CURRENT TEAM
Different expertise and perspectives converge on a shared effort to understand the unicellular world before animals.
01Lab manager
02Long-term visitor · Professor Emeritus
03Sabbatical researcher · University of Cambridge
04Postdoctoral researcher
05PhD researcher · FPU fellow
06PhD student
07PhD student
08Postdoctoral researcher · JSPS Overseas Research Fellow
09Postdoctoral researcher
10Postdoctoral researcher
11Postdoctoral researcher
12Postdoctoral researcher · Juan de la Cierva fellow
13Postdoctoral researcher · EMBL-EIPOD fellow
14PhD student · FPI fellow
15Lab technician
16Postdoctoral researcher
17Lab technician
18Bioinformatics technician
HOW WE WORK
We develop organisms that allow new biology to be seen: culturing them, sequencing their genomes and building the tools needed to perturb and compare them.
We value different intellectual routes into the same problem. Collaboration is not an addition to the work; it is part of how the field grows.
FIELD-BUILDING
1301Hiroshi Suga
02Arnau Sebé-Pedrós
03Alex de Mendoza
04Jordi Paps
05Daniel Richter
06Javier del Campo
07Mami Nomura
08Omaya Dudin
09Jesús Lozano
10Marta Álvarez
11Eduard Ocaña Pallarès
12Sebastian Najle
13Jennah Dharamshi
The wider alumni archive below recognizes every former member, across roles, destinations and career paths.
THE EXTENDED LAB
A chronological directory of former members, across roles and career paths.
01Xenia Maya · 2025–2026
02Gonzalo Bercedo · 2022–2026
03Marta Álvarez · 2023–2025
04Amal Rahmeh · 2024–2025
05Sergio Vasco Francisco · 2025
06Alkiviades Grivas · 2025
07Alba Mas i Puig · 2025
08Diego Montiel Ayora · 2025
09Rosana Cortés Garrido · 2024–2025
10Patricia Suárez Ara · 2019–2024
11Michelle Leger · 2016–2024
12Blai Crespo Selma · 2024
13Eva Markovic · 2023–2024
14Koryu Kin · 2020–2024
15Sanne Willems · 2023
16Robin Mueksch · 2023
17Juan Trinidad · 2023
18Núria Ros i Rocher · 2014–2022
19Danielle Mae Matriano · 2021–2022
20Aleksandra Kozyczkowska · 2016–2022
21Jesús Lozano · 2019–2021
22Àlex Gàlvez · 2021
23Arnau Galan · 2021
24Paula Crespo · 2021
25Konstantina Mitsi · 2016–2021
26Hector Romero · 2020–2021
27Daniel Richter · 2018–2020
28Cristiana Sigona · 2019–2020
29Pedro Charria · 2020
30Eduard Ocaña Pallarès · 2015–2020
31Sebastian Najle · 2014–2020
32Omaya Dudin · 2017–2020
33Mami Nomura · 2019–2020
34Alberto Pérez Posada · 2015–2019
35Andrej Ondracka · 2016–2019
36Aleix Antón · 2019
37Dani Caravaca · 2019
38Alicia S. Arroyo · 2015–2019
39Cecília Corbella · 2018–2019
40Helena Parra-Acero · 2012–2019
41David López Escardó · 2012–2018
42Alfonso Mendaña · 2017–2018
43Maria Ferrer Bonet · 2016–2018
44Xavier Grau i Bové · 2012–2018
45Maria Rubio Brotons · 2016–2017
46Matija Harcet · 2013–2016
47Cristina Aresté Calero · 2015–2016
48Xavi Florenza · 2015–2016
49Marta Ledesma · 2016
50Maria Buendía · 2016
51Takaaki Kai · 2016
52Gema Blasco · 2015–2016
53Xènia Pérez Sitjà · 2015
54Lourdes Riquelme · 2014
55Ferran Porté · 2013
56Núria Ros · 2012
57Alan Ordoño · 2012
58Maria José Mazón · 2012
59Alexandre Prats · 2012
60Diego Mallo · 2012
61Javier del Campo · 2011–2013
62Gemma Prunés · 2011
63John Shadwick · 2010–2011
64Lora Lindley · 2010–2011
65Núria Sánchez-Pons · 2009–2013
66Jordi Paps · 2009–2010
67Lluís Medina-Chacón · 2009–2010
68Hiroshi Suga · 2008–2014
69Romain Derelle · 2008–2009
70Alex Pérez · 2008–2009
71Alex de Mendoza · 2008–2014
72Guifré Torruella · 2008–2014
73Arnau Sebé-Pedrós · 2008–2015
JOIN / VISIT / COLLABORATE
We welcome conversations with researchers approaching animal origins, protist biology and evolutionary transitions from different disciplines.
Contact the lab ↗