My name is Rodrigo Senovilla-Ganzo, currently PhD candidate at Dr. Fernando García-Moreno’s lab in Achucarro Basque Centre for Neuroscience in Leioa, Spain. I am a biochemist and neuroscientist by formation, and I work in brain evo-devo using computational biology tools. Through single cell genomics, I profile early developmental vertebrate brains to identify neural stem regional cell types. Once I annotated these early brain atlases (human, gecko, chicken, mouse, zebrafish), I compare their cell-types’ transcriptome to assess their evolutionary conservation and which genes or genetic networks might be key during brain organogenesis.

Therefore, my main interest is to know how the early brain is formed, but also how the vertebrate brain evolutionarily appeared. For this reason, I am really interested in comparing vertebrate features against other non-conventional species as amphioxus, hemichordates, echinoderms… Deciphering how patterning and segmentation networks have been modified through evolution to achieve the current complex vertebrate brain and identify, if possible, cell-types which are specific to mammals, birds or humans.