iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by David Fernandez-Antoran

caixaresearch.bsky.social @caixaresearch.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

1/ 🔬 Detrás de los grandes titulares de la investigación contra el cáncer hay personas, preguntas y años de trabajo. Hoy, en el #DíaMundialDeLaInvestigaciónContraElCáncer, ponemos nombre y cara a algunos de los referentes de nuestra comunidad y a los avances que están consiguiendo. 📰👇

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Reposted by David Fernandez-Antoran

Inigo Martincorena @imartincorena.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Big paper alert! This project has been years in the making. A comprehensive description of somatic mutation rates and signatures across 53 tissues or cell types using NanoSeq. A large collective effort led by Mimy Pham, Mike Stratton and @r-rahbari.bsky.social. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

A comprehensive atlas of somatic mutation rates and mutational signatures in normal human cells

Over the course of a lifetime, somatic mutations accrue in normal human cells, causing variation in cell phenotype and engendering somatic evolution with outcomes ranging from the adaptive immune syst...

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Many thanks to the Cambridge Biorepository for Translational Medicine (CBTM, Kourosh Saeb-Parsy, Krishnaa T. Mahbubani, Jack Martin), Roser Vento-Tormo, Rajesh Jena, Gillian C. Barnett, Alberto Jiménez Schuhmacher and all our collaborators for their fantastic work and support.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Special thanks to all the #tissuedonors, their families and #patients who generously allowed us to use human samples to carry out this work. None of this would have been possible without their contribution. THANK YOU!

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

We are truly grateful to @cancerresearchuk.org RadNet for funding and supporting @antoranlab.bsky.social making this work possible and allow us to develop human #epithelioids as a platform that will help study how human tissues respond to #radiotherapy and #chemotherapy. More to come soon!

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

A major #teameffort lead by three outstanding postdocs @antoranlab.bsky.social : Ines S Ferreira, ALberto Pradilla-Dieste and @joseantonio-vl.bsky.social and thanks to a fruitful #collaboration with the amazing @imartincorena.bsky.social lab @sangerinstitute.bsky.social

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

We believe human #epithelioids could serve as a new experimental #platform to study epithelial #biology, #clonalevolution, #cellcompetition, tissue responses to #clinical #therapies, and molecular #cancerprevention.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Using this approach, we followed human #epithelioids for 8 months in continuous culture. #Mutationburden, #mutationalsignatures and #clonalcomposition remained remarkably stable over time, opening the door to #longitudinal studies of #clonalevolution in human tissues in vitro.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Another useful feature of human #epithelioids is that they shed differentiated cells into the culture medium. This allowed us to use culture #supernatants as a #liquidbiopsy readout of #clonalcomposition without perturbing or destroying the culture.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

We also looked at #mutational #signatures. Unlike some other culture systems, human #epithelioids did not show strong evidence of culture-induced #oxidative mutational damage, even after 8 months in culture. This is crucial for studying #endogenous mutational processes in vitro.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

The #driver landscapes found in human #epithelioids resembled those found in the corresponding human tissues (such as #NOTCH1, #TP53, #KMT2D, etc, that were positively #selected) consistent with previous studies of normal human tissues.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Most #mutations showed up at very low variant allele frequencies, consistent with many small clones coexisting within each human #epithelioid culture. This is a #key feature of normal human epithelia #invivo!

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

One major aim of this work was to test whether #human #epithelioids preserve the #clonal complexity of human tissues. Using #NanoSeq, we analysed #somatic #mutations in #epitheliods generated from multiple epithelial human tissues and found they remained strongly #polyclonal.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Do human #epithelioids behave like functional tissues? They form a selective epithelial barrier and repair #wounds after injury, with tissue-specific wound closure #dynamics, making them useful for studying epithelial homeostasis, damage and repair.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Surprisingly, we found CD45+/ CD3+ #immune cells in the majority of human #epithelioids, suggesting that part of the original immune #landscape can persist for months in culture.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

With #scRNAseq we found that human #epithelioids retain main epithelial cell populations and recapitulated major basal, proliferative and differentiated compartments, while also preserving aspects of tissue-specific cell identity.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Using #immunostaining and cutting-edge #electronmicroscopy (Marta Baselga), we show that human epithelioids preserve key features of their tissues of origin including tissue-specific architecture, epithelial #polarity, differentiation and specialised #structures

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

They are self-maintained over extended periods and can be kept in continuous culture for months (here we showed up to 8 months), enabling to follow tissue behaviour over time, #continuously!

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

In this work, we established #human #epithelioids from 8 adult human epithelial tissues: #trachea, #skin, #buccalmucosa, #esophagus, #bladder, #urethra, #submandibularsalivarygland and #endometrium. representing major epithelial #architectures.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Human epithelia are dynamic, where stem and progenitor cells maintain tissue function, accumulate #mutations over time, and #compete for the space with neighbouring cells. But understanding these #longterm processes is extremely challenging.

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

#Postdoctoral opportunity #JuandelaCierva #Zaragoza, #Spain Motivated postdoctoral researcher interested in translational cancer research and primary 3D cultures. DM a short statement of interest and CV. #JuanDeLaCierva #CancerResearch #Epithelioids #3DModels #TranslationalResearch

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David Fernandez-Antoran @df-antoran.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Had an absolute pleasure giving a talk at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research #GSI in #Darmstadt 🇩🇪 (some of the heaviest elements were created here!). Incredible hub for radiation research. Huge thanks to Dr. Walter Tinganelli for his kind invitation and for being such a fantastic host.

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