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Marta Kovatcheva Lab

Marta Kovatcheva

Marta was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and grew up in Toronto, Canada. She obtained her Hon. BSc. in Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto in 2010. Marta completed her undergraduate thesis under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Durocher, studying the role of ubiquitin signaling in the double strand break DNA damage response. read more

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Cell Plasticity & Aging

The concept of “cell plasticity” refers to the capacity of a cell to adopt different identities without any genetic mutations. A classic example of cell plasticity occurs during development, when embryonic stem cells differentiate into the immense diversity of cell types we see in the adult body. It is now appreciated that cell plasticity also plays an important role in adult tissues, particularly in the context of injury and regeneration, where it is indispensable for tissue repair. read more

Laboratory location: Milan, Italy

Recent publications

  1. Valentina Ramponi, Laia Richart, Marta Kovatcheva, Camille Stephan-Otto Attolini, Jordi Capellades, Alice E Lord, Oscar Yanes, Gabriella Ficz, Manuel Serrano.
    H4K20me3-Mediated Repression of Inflammatory Genes is a Characteristic and Targetable Vulnerability of Persister Cancer Cells
    Cancer Res. 2024 Oct 30. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-24-0529.
  2. Vanessa López-Polo, Mate Maus, Emmanouil Zacharioudakis, Miguel Lafarga, Camille Stephan-Otto Attolini, Francisco D M Marques, Marta Kovatcheva, Evripidis Gavathiotis, Manuel Serrano
    Release of mitochondrial dsRNA into the cytosol is a key driver of the inflammatory phenotype of senescent cells
    Nat Commun. 2024 Aug 27;15(1):7378.
    doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-51363-0.
  3. Margherita Protasoni, Vanessa López-Polo, Camille Stephan-Otto Attolini, Julian Brandariz, Nicolas Herranz, Joaquin Mateo, Sergio Ruiz, Oscar Fernandez-Capetillo, Marta Kovatcheva, Manuel Serrano.
    Cyclophilin D plays a critical role in the survival of senescent cells
    EMBO J. 2024 Dec;43(23):5972-6000. doi: 10.1038/s44318-024-00259-2. Epub 2024 Oct 24.
  4. Marta Kovatcheva, Elena Melendez, Dafni Chondronasiou, Federico Pietrocola, Raquel Bernad, Adrià Caballe, Alexandra Junza, Jordi Capellades, Adrián Holguín-Horcajo, Neus Prats, Sylvere Durand, Meritxell Rovira, Oscar Yanes, Camille Stephan-Otto Attolini, Guido Kroemer, Manuel Serrano
    Vitamin B12 is a limiting factor for induced cellular plasticity and tissue repair
    Nat Metab. 2023 Nov;5(11):1911-1930. doi: 10.1038/s42255-023-00916-6. Epub 2023 Nov 16.
  5. Inés Domínguez-López, Marta Kovatcheva, Rosa Casas, Estefanía Toledo, Montserrat Fitó, Emilio Ros, Ramon Estruch, Manuel Serrano 4 9, Rosa M Lamuela-Raventós
    Higher circulating vitamin B12 is associated with lower levels of inflammatory markers in individuals at high cardiovascular risk and in naturally aged mice
    J Sci Food Agric. 2024 Jan 30;104(2):875-882. doi: 10.1002/jsfa.12976. Epub 2023 Sep 19.
selected list PubMed

Group members

Post doc
Christina Fissoun
Valentina Ramponi
Phd Student
Saket Bhargava
Devraj Parande
Temporary Fellowship
Benedetta Mannelli

(update: Dec 2024)