Julen Tomás Cortázar

Postdoctoral researcher

University College Dublin, Ireland

Tel: +34 69079265

Email: julen.tomascortazar@ucd.ie

VALIDATE Role:

Network Associate

Research Keywords:

Vaccine, Melioidosis, Burkholderia pseudomallei

Biography:

I defended my PhD thesis in october under the direction of Dr. Juan Anguita's at CICbioGUNE, Spain, During my thesis work I have been involved in a European consortium and project (ANTIDotE) to develop anti-tick vaccines to prevent tick-brone diseases in Euorpe (Sprong et al., 2014). In addition, I have also been focused on deciphering how to use the immunosuppressive tick salivary protein, Salp15 (15-kDa Salivary Protein), in an autoimune disease like Graft versus Host Disease (GvHD) affects the cells of the immune system, specifically focused on CD4 T cell responses and anergy (Tomás Cortázar et al. 2017). Also I had the opportunity to investigate the interaction between Salp15 and the CD4
co-receptor.

Currently, I am working as a postdoctoral researcher under the supervision of Dr. Siobhán McClean at University College Dublin. I am in charge of the part of a project funded by Wellcome Trust agency to develop a vaccine against Melioidosis caused by the Gram-negative bacteria Burkholderia pseudomallei. Apart from the purification of new antigens identified by a new method (McClean et al. 2016) and the following characterization of their immunogenic level, my work will be also focused on the characterization of the T cell response against these new and other antigens like BpOmpW (McClean et al. 2016).

Key Publications:

Tomás-Cortazar, J*; Laura Plaza-Vinuesa*; Blanca de las Rivas; Jose Luis Lavin; Diego Barriales; Leticia Abecia; Jose Miguel Mancheño; Ana Maria Aransay; Rosario Muñoz; Juan Anguita*; Hector Rodriguez* (2018). Identification of a highly active tannase enzyme from the oral pathogen Fusobacterium nucleatum subsp. Polymorphum. Microbial Cell Factories.

Tomás-Cortázar, J., I. Martín-Ruiz, D. Barriales, M. Pascual-Itoiz, V. G. de Juan, A. Caro-Maldonado, N. Merino, A. Marina, F. J. Blanco, J. M. Flores, J. D. Sutherland, R. Barrio, A. Rojas, M. L. Martínez-Chantar, A. Carracedo, C. Simó, V. García-Cañas, L. Abecia, J. L. Lavín, A. M. Aransay, H. Rodríguez and J. Anguita (2017). The immunosuppressive effect of the tick protein, Salp15, is long-lasting and persists in a murine model of hematopoietic transplant. Scientific Reports 7: 10740.

Carreras-González, A., N. Navasa, I. Martin-Ruiz, J.L. Lavín, M. Azkargorta, E. Atondo, D. Barriales, N. Macías-Cámara, M.A. Pascual-Itoiz, L. Sampedro, J. Tomás-Cortázar, A. Peña-Cearra, R. Prados-Rosales, L. Abecia, F. Elortza, A.M. Aransay, H. Rodríguez and Juan Anguita (2018). A multi-omic analysis reveals the regulatory role of CD180 during the response of macrophages to Borrelia burgdorferi. Emerging Microbes & Infections.

Zabala-Letona, A., A. Arruabarrena-Aristorena, N. Martín-Martín, S. Fernandez-Ruiz, J. D. Sutherland, M. Clasquin, J. TomásCortázar, J. Jimenez, I. Torres, P. Quang, P. Ximenez-Embun, R. Bago, A. Ugalde-Olano, A. Loizaga-Iriarte, I. Lacasa-Viscasillas, M. Unda, V. Torrano, D. Cabrera, S. M. van Liempd, Y. Cendon, E. Castro, S. Murray, A. Revandkar, A. Alimonti, Y. Zhang, A. Barnett, G. Lein, D. Pirman, A. R. Cortazar, L. Arreal, L. Prudkin, I. Astobiza, L. Valcarcel-Jimenez, P. Zuñiga-GarcÌa, I. Fernandez-Dominguez, M. Piva, A. Caro-Maldonado, P. S·nchez-Mosquera, M. CastilloMartÌn, V. Serra, N. Beraza, A. Gentilella, G. Thomas, M. Azkargorta, F. Elortza, R. Farr‡s, D. Olmos, A. Efeyan, J. Anguita, J. Muñoz, J. M. Falcón-Pérez, R. Barrio, T. Macarulla, J. M. Mato, M. L. Martinez-Chantar, C. Cordon-Cardo, A. M. Aransay, K. Marks, J. Baselga, J. Tabernero, P. Nuciforo, B. D. Manning, K. Marjon and A. Carracedo (2017). mTORC1-dependent AMD1 regulation sustains polyamine metabolism in prostate cancer. Nature 547: 109-113.

Prados-Rosales, R., L. Carreño, T. Cheng, C. Blanc, B. Weinrick, A. Malek, T. L. Lowary, A. Baena, M. Joe, Y. Bai, R. Kalscheuer, A. Batista-Gonzalez, N. A. Saavedra, L. Sampedro, J. Tomás, J.
Anguita, S. C. Hung, A. Tripathi, J. Xu, A. Glatman-Freedman, W. R. Jacobs, J. Chan, S. A. Porcelli, J. M. Achkar and A. Casadevall (2017). Enhanced control of Mycobacterium tuberculosis
extrapulmonary dissemination in mice by an arabinomannanprotein conjugate vaccine. PLoS Pathogens 13: e1006250.

Champagne, D. P., K. M. Hatle, K. A. Fortner, A. D'Alessandro, T. M. Thornton, R. Yang, D. Torralba, J. Tomás-Cortázar, Y. W. Jun, K. H. Ahn, K. C. Hansen, L. Haynes, J. Anguita and M. Rincon (2016). Fine-Tuning of CD8(+) T Cell Mitochondrial Metabolism by the Respiratory Chain Repressor MCJ Dictates Protection to Influenza Virus. Immunity 44: 1299-1311.

Navasa, N., I. Martin-Ruiz, E. Atondo, J. D. Sutherland, M. Angel Pascual-Itoiz, A. Carreras-González, H. Izadi, J. TomásCortázar, F. Ayaz, N. Martin-Martin, I. M. Torres, R. Barrio, A. Carracedo, E. R. Olivera, M. Rincón and J. Anguita (2015). Ikaros mediates the DNA methylation-independent silencing of MCJ/DNAJC15 gene expression in macrophages. Scientific Reports 5: 146