Biography

I was born and raised in Havana city, the capital of Cuba. Growing up in Cuba, I had incredible opportunities to be surrounded by all kinds of flora and fauna, which captivated my curiosity at an early age. From tropical forests to beautiful insects and birds, and especially the sea ecosystem, I was very fortunate to have role models who always encouraged my curiosity and were ready with books to help answer my never-ending stream of questions.

As a teenager, I relocated with my family to Ottawa, Ontario, where I completed my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Biotechnology. Over the course of my undergrad, I had amazing opportunities to discover what it was like to conduct research in different settings. In the summer of my first year, I joined the lab of Dr. Alex Wong, where I focused on studying the adaptation of Escherichia coli single-gene knock-outs in the presence of selective pressures and fitness trade-offs of resistance. I continued to work there until the completion of my undergraduate thesis, which I likewise completed under Dr. Wong’s supervision.

I also had the exciting opportunity to return to Cuba and participate in a research internship focused on the testing and development of a microbial-based biostimulant and fertilizer, now utilized on the island, called LEBAME.

During my undergrad, another subject that deeply fascinated me was cellular signaling. The intricate ways in which proteins control cell communication and regulate essential biological processes, and their dysregulation in a myriad of human diseases, captivated my curiosity and inspired me to pursue graduate studies. My doctoral work at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) focused on characterizing the biochemical properties of small GTPase proteins, particularly MRAS, to understand structure-function relationships and how this contributes to cancer development.

In this exciting work, we uncovered that this RAS-related GTPase is actually a pseudoenzyme, despite its high sequence and structural homology with well-studied oncoproteins. Our findings throughout the MRAS project brought back that curiosity for evolution I had developed during my undergrad. To better understand the evolution of MRAS as a pseudoGTPase, I began studying the biochemical characteristics of RAS orthologs from C. elegans, a model organism that has played a tremendous role in elucidating RAS function and RAS signaling pathways.

I found this aspect of my research particularly fascinating, as I had found a way, albeit with a different lens, to return to questions of evolutionary pressure and coevolution in biological systems. This, in turn, led me to venture into my postdoctoral work in the Landry lab, which I joined in July 2025. I am thrilled to bridge the world of evolution, now in yeast, with all of the protein biochemistry and biophysics knowledge I acquired through my doctoral work. I hope that through this research we can better understand how signaling pathways and protein-protein interactions evolve and uncover the molecular basis that drives this evolution.

Research interests

My interests focus on understanding how cellular signaling systems evolve and function at the molecular level. I am particularly fascinated by the intricate ways proteins control cell communication and how these systems are shaped by evolutionary pressures over time. Through my work, I aim to bridge evolutionary biology with protein biochemistry and biophysics to uncover the fundamental principles that govern how signaling pathways and protein-protein interactions evolve.