PhD Candidate
University of Regensburg, Germany
Raquel Centeio is a final year Biomedicine PhD candidate at the University of Regensburg in Germany.
She is an avid learner with a great fascination for the wonders of the human body. Particularly, she has been amazed by the intricacies of human genetic diseases since she first started learning about inheritance patterns back in high school. When the time came and given the opportunity, she started her scientific career in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) research.
Previously, for her Master's thesis, she worked closely with rare CFTR gene mutations in patient-derived materials (nasal and rectal biopsies) to support an individualized diagnosis and prognosis of CF. Using innovative techniques in the CF field, such as swelling assays of patient-derived 3D organoid cultures, she tested novel and putative CFTR modulators with the main goal of predicting the best treatment combination for each CF patient, in a personalized medicine approach.
The main scope of her current research is to address the major cause of morbidity and mortality among CF patients: pulmonary disease. By using a broad range of electrophysiological, and cell and molecular biological techniques, she is interested in analyzing the contribution of alternative chloride channels (such as TMEM16A and SLC26A9) to chloride, fluid, and mucus secretion in the airways, exploring them as targets for restoring airway function in all CF patients, regardless of their CFTR mutations.