Alicante Institute for Health and Biomedical Research

ISABIAL, Alicante Institute for Health and Biomedical Research, is the only Institute in Alicante province recognized as “Accredited Health Research Institute”, the highest distinction in the Spanish national health system.

ISABIAL is a multidisciplinary and translational biomedical research space oriented to basic, clinical, epidemiological and health research, which aims to contribute to increase the quality of biomedical research developed in Alicante, as a result of the association between research groups and researchers, including Primary Care.The entities that form the Institute are: Department of Health Alicante-General Hospital, through the participation of the Conselleria de Sanitat Universal i Salut Pública; University of Alicante; Miguel Hernández University; and ISABIAL Foundation as management body. The Alicante General Hospital Dr Balmis is part of the network of public hospitals of the Valencian Community, being the reference hospital for the whole Alicante province. It is a hospital of the highest category, being the largest in the province of Alicante and the second largest in the Valencian Community attending 287,307 inhabitants.

ISABIAL’s mission is to foster, promote, coordinate, execute and manage quality research, promoting transnational research through synergy between basic research groups and clinical research groups, as well as the optimization of resources through common services and efficient management structures. More than 600 researchers affiliated with the institute are organized into 44 research groups (12 consolidated, 23 emerging, and 9 clinical associate groups) and distributed across the following five Research Areas: Neurosciences, Sensory Organs, and Pain Pathology; Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Nutrition; Medicine, Chronicity, and Health Care; Digestive Pathology; and Cancer.

Role of institution in the project

ISABIAL participates in WP7 and providing nearly 3000 cancer datasets (colorectal carcinoma, brain and lung cancer datasets) as well as their expertise and impact the largest hospital in the province of Alicante and the second largest in the Valencian Community.

Dr. Cristina Alenda

Dr. Cristina Alenda holds a degree in Medicine and Surgery from UMH (1998) and is a Specialist in Pathological Anatomy with MIR training at the General University Hospital of Alicante where she joined the colorectal cancer research line, contributing to her first AES-funded project. Her group determined the prevalence of Lynch syndrome in Spain. After completing her specialization, she was awarded a Río Hortega research contract, including training in Neuropathology at Radboud Medical Center (Netherlands). She obtained her PhD in Clinical Medicine from UMH, earning the second-best thesis award from the Medical College in 2008. Her research in colorectal cancer allowed her to develop expertise in molecular and immunohistochemical techniques. Since then, she has served as a reference pathologist for the Valencian Oncology Plan. She has led studies on brain tumors and the application of AI in predicting molecular alterations in neoplasms. With over 90 publications (H-index 29), she has participated in 35 competitive projects (12 as PI). Currently, she is Head of Pathology at HGUA, overseeing technological advancements such as digital diagnosis. Since 2023, she has been the Scientific Director of ISABIAL, contributing to its accreditation and consolidation. She is also an Associate Professor at UMH.

Dr. Luis Miguel Valor

Dr. Luis Miguel Valor earned his Ph.D. at the Instituto de Neurociencias (1997-2003) under Dr. Manuel Criado, studying the regulation of neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. He received fellowships from F.P.I. Generalitat Valenciana and Fundación Bancaja-CSIC. His first postdoctoral research at the Sanger Institute (2003-2007) with Prof. Seth Grant established the first correlation between gene expression and neuronal firing during synaptogenesis, identifying a kinase activation code for activity-dependent gene induction. He later joined Dr. Ángel Barco’s lab at the Instituto de Neurociencias (2007-2009), characterizing conditional CBP knockout mice and fine-tuning CREB activity regulation for neuronal survival. As a Ramón y Cajal researcher (2009-2015), he led transcriptomics and epigenomics studies in Huntington’s disease (HD), identifying an HD-related transcriptional/epigenetic signature. Later, as a Miguel Servet researcher (2016-2021, 2021-2024), he developed biomarkers for trinucleotide disorders and gliomas, implementing novel technologies such as single-cell RNA-seq and AI-based algorithms. With 54 peer-reviewed publications, he has mentored five Ph.D. and five Master’s students. He is a member of EHDN and has actively participated in scientific outreach and patient advocacy. Currently, he leads the "Genetics, Epigenetics, and Transcription in Brain Pathologies" research group at ISABIAL.

Samanta Ortuño Miquel

Samanta Ortuño Miquel graduated in Biotechnology from Miguel Hernández University (UMH) in 2016 and completed a Master’s in Biotechnology and Bioengineering (UMH) in 2017. Her undergraduate and master’s theses, supervised by Dr. Vera, led to a first-author publication on flowering regulation in Arabidopsis. She later trained in forensic genetics in Italy. She then pursued a Master’s in Bioinformatics at the University of Murcia (UM), where she found her true vocation. During this time, she worked at Taxón Estudios Ambientales S.L., gaining experience in France and later in Dr. Garcia-Charton’s lab (UM). She specialized in web applications using Shiny (R), relational databases, genetic characterization (metabarcoding), and bioinformatics workflows. Currently, she is a Bioinformatics Support Technician at ISABIAL, assisting research groups in Neurosciences, Hepatic and Intestinal Immunobiology, Cardiology, Rare and Infectious Diseases, and Neuropharmacology. Her responsibilities include web development, workflow design for alternative splicing, RNA-seq, scRNA-seq, and ChIP-seq analysis, as well as training healthcare personnel and managing REDCap. She is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Alicante, under Dr. Gil (UA) and Dr. Alenda (ISABIAL), focusing on AI applications in healthcare data.

Dr. Óscar Elía-Zudaire

Dr. Óscar Elía-Zudaire is the International Project Manager at ISABIAL. With a strong background in both scientific research and project management, he will support ISABIAL's scientific coordination and serve as the primary contact for EUCAIM.

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