Irene Miguel-Aliaga facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Irene Miguel-Aliaga
FRS FMedSci
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Miguel-Aliaga in 2015
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| Alma mater | University of Oxford (DPhil) |
| Awards | EMBO Member (2017) Suffrage Science award (2018) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Imperial College London National Institute for Medical Research University of Cambridge Harvard University Linköping University |
| Thesis | Spinal muscular atrophy : of flies, worms and men (2000) |
| Doctoral advisor | Kay Davies |
Irene Miguel-Aliaga is a leading scientist from Spain and Britain. She is a Professor of Genetics and Physiology at Imperial College London. Her research looks at how our adult body parts, like organs, can change. She studies why organs change their shape or function when things around us change. In 2022, she was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society, which is a very important award for scientists.
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Early Life and Education
Irene Miguel-Aliaga grew up in Barcelona, Spain. She moved to England to study at the University of Oxford. There, she earned her PhD degree. For her PhD, she studied how human diseases can be understood by looking at small animals like worms and flies. Her supervisor was Kay Davies.
Discovering How Organs Change
After finishing her PhD, Irene moved to the United States. She did more research at Harvard University. Later, she worked at Linköping University in Sweden. There, she studied the tiny nerve cells in Drosophila, also known as fruit flies.
She then joined the National Institute for Medical Research. Here, she learned about special nerve cells in the gut that produce insulin. In 2008, Irene started her own research team at the University of Cambridge. She later moved to Imperial College London. At Imperial, she is now a Professor, teaching and researching genetics and how our bodies work.
How Our Bodies Adapt
Professor Miguel-Aliaga's research focuses on how adult organs can change and adapt. She wants to know how our fully grown organs are affected by changes in our environment. For example, what happens when we eat different foods?
To understand this, she often studies the gastrointestinal tract, which is our digestive system. This system is great for studying how an organ reacts to signals from inside and outside the body.
Gut-Brain Connection
Her team has found that the guts of males and females work differently. They noticed differences in how the gut talks to the brain. This is especially true when new cells are made or when unusual growths (like tumors) form. Her group also found ways the gut communicates with other organs in the body.
She often uses Drosophila (fruit flies) in her studies. This is because fruit flies share more than 60% of their genes with humans. This means what they learn from flies can often help us understand human bodies better.
Awards and Special Recognitions
Irene Miguel-Aliaga has received many awards for her important work:
- 2012 European Molecular Biology Organization young investigator
- 2015 Journal of Cell Science One to Watch
- 2017 Elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)
- 2018 European Research Council advanced grant
- 2018 Suffrage Science Women In Science Award
- 2019 Elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci)
- 2022 Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
- 2022 Mary Lyon Medal
Key Research Papers
Some of her important research papers include:
- Enteric neurons and systemic signals couple nutritional and reproductive status with intestinal homeostasis
- The digestive tract of Drosophila melanogaster
