Laura Orellana

Laura Orellana

Biträdande Lektor
E-postadress: laura.orellana@ki.se
Besöksadress: BioClinicum - J6:06, Akademiska Stråket 1, 17164 Solna
Postadress: K7 Onkologi-Patologi, K7 Forskning Orellana, 171 77 Stockholm

Om mig

  • Jag är en strukturbiofysiker med medicinsk bakgrund. Mitt mål är att
    förstå mänskliga sjukdomar i atomskala: hur mutationer förändrar
    proteinstruktur, rörelser och biologisk funktion.
    2021: Petrus och Augusta Hedlunds Foundation Grant
    2021: Cancerfonden Junior Investigator Award
    2020: Jeanssons Foundation Young Leaders Grant
    2020: Karolinska Institute Research Foundation Special Grant
    2019: Karolinska Institute Tenure-track Faculty Position with start-up grant
    Award (KI Allocation of faculty funded career positions 2019 [1])
    2019: O.E. och Edla Johanssons Research Grant
    2016-2018: Sven och Lily Lawski Foundation Fellow
    *Academic Honors*
    2006: Extraordinary Prize for Academic Excellence in Biochemistry, University
    of Barcelona
    *2010–2014: PhD in Physics /summa cum laude/*/, /Faculty of Physics,
    University of Barcelona
    /Thesis: /“Protein Dynamics and Function studied by coarse-grained and
    atomistic theoretical approaches” [2]
    *2008–2011: Clinical training* (M.D. degree, 2nd cycle: 345 out of 500
    ECTS), Hospital Clínic de Barcelona & Hospital Universitari Sagrat Cor
    *2008 –2010: MSc in Biophysics*, Faculty of Physics, University of
    Barcelona
    *2006 – 2007: MSc in Structure & Function of Proteins*, Barcelona
    Autonomous University
    *2003–2005: BSc in Biochemistry with Extraordinary Prize & minor in
    Physics*, Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona
    *1999–2003: Medicine* (M.D. degree, 1st cycle), Faculty of Medicine,
    University of Barcelona
    *Academic appointments*
    *Nov. 2020: Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Medical Sciences*,
    Karolinska Institute
    *2019-2020: Researcher (Forskare) in Structural Biology*, Stockholm
    University
    *2014-2018: Postdoctoral Fellow in Computational Biophysics & Cryo-EM*,
    Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) & Stockholm University
    *2008-2014: Graduate Student in Protein Biophysics & Molecular
    Modelling*, Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona & Barcelona
    Supercomputing Center
    [1] https://ki.se/en/about/allocation-of-faculty-funded-career-positions-2019
    [2] https://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/283656

Forskningsbeskrivning

Artiklar

Alla övriga publikationer

Forskningsbidrag

  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2022 - 31 December 2025
    Cancer is a unique disease in which cells acquire positive traits for survival, mirroring species evolution. Classical methods to identify driver mutations aim to detect the signatures of Darwinian positive selection, which appear as 3D-clusters of dozens of mutations in localized regions of protein structures. Such methods cannot explain the reasons for mutational clustering, which requires understanding how the protein structure is linked to function: the so-called conformational changes. Here we propose to apply an innovative methodology that pushes genomic data towards conformational mutation profiling using simulations, structural techniques, and molecular biology. We have successfully applied this approach to the oncogene EGFR, revealing how heterogeneous missense and deletion mutations evolutionarily converge in glioblastoma to a similar structural-functional effect, and thus respond to the same drugs. Our findings shed light on how apparently diverse mutations can be biochemically equivalent, reducing the complexity of tumor heterogeneity to fewer evolutionarily selected traits. Our preliminary results indicate evolutionarily convergent structural traits appear in many other unexpected proteins such as sugar transporters, channels and pumps. This project aims to explore in the extent and role of molecular convergence in cancer in two phases -computational and experimental- with the goal to understand the biological effect of mutations and rationalize cancer therapy.

Nyheter från KI

Kalenderhändelser från KI