About Me

Staff Scientist 

Laboratory of Neuroinflammation

Hospital Nacional de Paraplejicos (Toledo, Spain)

e-mail: dgarciao@sescam.jccm.es

Twitter: @dgovejero

 

I obtained my Ph. D. in 2004 at the Cajal Institute (Laboratory of Prof. Luis Miguel Garcia‐Segura). During my thesis I studied the expression of androgen and estrogen receptors in glial cells and the role of neurosteroids in glial activation. I visited laboratories of Dr. Lydia DonCarlos (Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University, Chicago, IL, USA) and Prof. Bente Finsen (Syddansk Universitet, Odense, Denmark). Then I moved to the National Hospital for Paraplegics to focus on spinal cord injury, for what I made a short stay at the Spinal Trauma and Repair Laboratories, Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio, USA) where I attended the Spinal Cord Injury Research Training Program in 2006. 

    In past years, I have studied the expression of the endocannabinoid system in the normal and injured spinal cord in rats and humans, exploring the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids in the sub‐chronic /chronic phase. Also, I focused on studying the potential of endogenous stem cell/precursor cells as an strategy for cell replacement and recovery of function after spinal cord lesions. We have shown that human ependymal region is largely different from that in other mammals (including rodents and monkeys), and does not proliferate after injury.

       I am currently focused in two different lines of research:

      1- To explore the role of Human Endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) in ependymomas, funded by crowfunding via Precipita (Spanish Foundationa for Science and Technology), in collaboration with DKFZ and GeNeuro.

     2- To investigate diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in spinal cord injured patients, in parallel with the search of new therapeutic targets from bedside to bench and back. This is a joint effort with my colleague and friend Angel Arevalo-Martin Ph.D. and our outstanding collaborators in Germany (Murnau), Austria (Salzburg) and Canada (Vancouver). This line is currently supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (ref. PID2020-120652RB-I00).

 I have been Principal Investigator of 2 grants by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, one regional grant (Fundación para la Investigación Sanitaria en Castilla La Mancha) and 4 grants from private foundations (Fundación Mutua Madrileña, Wings For Life Foundation, Precipita-FECYT). 

I have currently 45 papers indexed in PubMed (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=garcia‐ovejero%20d), with more than 2900 cites and h index = 25. 

Google scholar ( https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=oyXnRCsAAAAJ&hl=es ). 

 

Techniques: I have worked with experimental models of brain and spinal cord injury in rats and mice, including spinal contusion, brain stab wound, perforant path sectioning and kainic acid excitotoxic injury. I have skills in rat and mouse microsurgery, histochemistry, immunohistochemistry, multiple fluorescent labels, electron microscopy, spectral confocal microscopy, flow cytometry, stereology, Laser Capture Microdissection, western blotting, SRM, qPCR, primary cell cultures (neurospheres, astrocytes, microglia, ependymoma) and evaluation of motor and sensitive behaviour (BBB scale for rats, BMS scale for mice, CatWalk gait analysis, horizontal ladder, Rota‐rod, hot and cold plate, Hargreaves, Von Frey hairs, Dynamic Von Frey).

 

You are more than welcome to visit my profesional profile at researchgate  ( https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel_Garcia-Ovejero )