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Institutes of Science
Pura Muñoz-Cánoves, PhD
Principal Investigator
"My laboratory has focused over the past 15 years on understanding how stem cells and tissues age. Now, by joining Altos Labs, we hope to make the breakthroughs that are necessary to imagine new ways to confront aging and its associated diseases, for a long life lived in health."
Dr. Pura Muñoz-Cánoves is a Principal Investigator at the Altos Labs San Diego Institute of Science.
Prior to joining Altos, Pura was an ICREA Professor and Cell Biology Professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, and Senior Scientist at the Spanish National Cardiovascular Research Center in Madrid, Spain. Her discoveries have set new paradigms on how stem cells age. For instance, her lab was the first to demonstrate that at advanced (geriatric) age, quiescent muscle stem cells undergo proteostatic failure, leading to senescence, a reprogramming of their normal daily circadian functions, and eventually, to regenerative impairment. These findings have already changed the classical conception of dormancy for adult stem cells and their regenerative functions, and have ample implications in regenerative medicine and aging. Pura's awards include the 2015 Pfizer and 2019 Lilly prizes in biomedicine, the 2019 King Jaume I Prize, and 2021 Spain National Prize Santiago Ramón y Cajal in Biomedicine, as well as ERC awards and permanent membership in EMBO and Academia Europaea.