Investigador Principal | Responsable del Módulo de Biopsia Líquida

Itziar Salaverria Frigola

PhD, Hospital Universitario X

Biografía y Trayectoria

Itziar Salaverria, biologist (Autonomous University of Barcelona, 2002) and PhD in Cellular Biology and Pathology  by the University of Barcelona (2008), is Senior Group Leader R4 of the Molecular Genetics of Pediatric Lymphomas group at FCRB-IDIBAPS. Her scientific career with more than 20 years of experience has focused on the analysis of the genetic and molecular mechanisms involved in the development and progression of human haematological neoplasms. She is also member of the Hematological Tumors Program CIBERONC (CB16/12/00225).

Dr. Salaverria has experience in liquid biopsy technologies, including Digital PCR and Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), applied to ALK transcripts in Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphomas (MDD/MRD detection) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in aggressive B-cell lymphomas.

During her whole research career, she has provided an outstanding contribution to scientific knowledge coauthoring a total of 88 publications (H-index 50) and 25 focused on pediatric variants of the disease. Her work as PI has been continuously and overlappingly funded by ISCIII (FIS 2015, 2018, 2021 2024 and Fortalece 2023), Generalitat de Catalunya (Peris Program 2016 and 2020) and AECC (Cancer Infantil 2017 and Proyectos Generales 2021). Her studies have improved the classification of NHL and identified new entities in children, as reflected in the current classifications of Haematological Tumours, and have been widely cited (7827 citations, Source Scopus). At national level, with the support of NHL-SEHOP, she has made possible the establishment of a national pediatric NHL registry (>410 registered tumors) that allows centralized diagnostic review and collection of biological samples, ensuring present and future research projects and participation of Spanish centres in international clinical trials. She has supervised 2 PhD and 6 master theses, and she is currently supervising four more PhD students. She holds the Research Accreditation from Agència per la Qualitat del Sistema Universitari- AQU (Generalitat de Catalunya) and the I3 accreditation (Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Ministerio de Ciencia en Innovación). Her expertise is also recognized by 23 invited lectures and by her role as expert reviewer of national and international research agencies and specialized journals. 

Líneas de Investigación Actuales

  • Optimización de protocolos de aislamiento de ctDNA.
  • Evaluación del valor pronóstico de las Células Tumorales Circulantes (CTCs).
  • Desarrollo de paneles de secuenciación de nueva generación (NGS) adaptados a la biopsia líquida.
  • Estudio de microvesículas y exosomas en la metástasis tumoral.

Publicaciones Destacadas

Puede consultar el listado completo en el perfil ORCID.

El Dr. Toledo ha publicado más de 50 artículos en revistas peer-reviewed, incluyendo *JAMA Oncology* y *Clinical Cancer Research*. Es revisor habitual de diversas revistas científicas internacionales y participa activamente en congresos internacionales.