About me
Dr Isabel Barragan is Assistant Professor and group leader of the research group “Pharmacoepigenetics”.
Isabel Barragan graduated with a Master of Pharmacy from the University of Seville, Spain, and achieved her PhD Degree and European Doctorate in Molecular Medicine for her research on the genetic basis of Inherited Retinal Dystrophies, with emphasis on autosomal recessive RP (arRP), which is an important cause of blindness worldwide. The result of this research was the identification and annotation of EYS, commonly mutated in arRP, which stands out as the first major gene reported for this inherited blindness and the largest eye-specific gene identified so far.
In 2007 she became a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Clinical Genetics, Fertility and Fetal Therapy Unit of University Hospitals Virgen del Rocio. During this period, she was dedicated to identify the impact of EYS in different populations.
In 2011 she moved to Stockholm to join the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Karolinska Institutet, where she focused on the implementation and characterisation of in vitro models for drug toxicity evaluation and in the identification of pharmacogenetic biomarkers in diverse disease conditions. As a Marie Curie Career Integration Grants fellow, she incorporated the study of epigenetic regulation of genes important for drug metabolism and action to the search for new biomarkers of interindividual variation in treatment response.
Her unique background that combines Pharmacology, Human Genetics, and Liver Epigenetics, has allowed her to open her own line of investigations based on Medical Omics research to understand and overcome the lack of efficacy of pharmacological treatments, specifically in liver cancer.
Dr Barragan has set up her own laboratory at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and she is appointed by the Karolinska Institutet Board of Research (KI- Forskarassistent ref nr 4922/12-223).