Hi! I’m Carles, a computational biologist at the BHF Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge. My research focuses on developing metabolic models (i.e., in silico representations of metabolism) and multi-omic integration approaches to uncover disease-relevant processes.

Background

I earned my bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Barcelona, where I first developed an interest in Systems Biology. To further explore this field, I enrolled in the Biohealth Computing Erasmus Mundus master’s program, which allowed me to study bioinformatics at the University of Turin and develop new kinetic modelling tools at Joseph Fourier University.

I then pursued a Ph.D. in Biotechnology at the University of Barcelona, where I was part of the Integrative Systems Biology, Metabolomics, and Cancer Research Laboratory. My doctoral research focused on genome-scale metabolic modelling of cancer metabolism. I also contributed to the development of new tools for 13C-resolved metabolomics, including Iso2Flux which was chosen as the stationary 13C Metabolic Flux Analysis software for the EU Phenomenal cloud e-infrastructure. In 2021, I joined the Cambridge node of the Inouye Lab to expand my research into genomic and cardiovascular data science.

Research

My research focuses on leveraging metabolic models and other biological networks as platforms to integrate multiple layers of data. During my PhD, I focused on Cancer Metabolism, integrating multi-omics datasets to build cancer-specific metabolic models. These models enabled me to characterize the metabolic reprogramming underlying metastasis and chemoresistance, ultimately identifying druggable metabolic vulnerabilities that were validated experimentally. Since moving to the University of Cambridge, I have shifted my focus toward cardiovascular research and population data science. My current work involves integrating genomic, metabolomic, and proteomic data to build personalized metabolic models across large cohorts and biobanks. These models enable me to uncover key metabolic processes linked to cardiovascular disease and their interplay with genetic risk.

Research Interests

• Systems Biology
• Kinetic & Genome-Scale Metabolic Models
• Metabolomics & 13C-resolved Metabolomics
• Genomics & Multi-Omics Integration
• Cancer Metabolism & Chemoresistance
• Cardiovascular Diseases & Genetic Risk