St. Anna Children's Cancer Research Institute (CCRI)
Irinka Castanon is a Senior Staff Scientist at St. Anna Children's Cancer Research Institute (CCRI) since January 2021, specializing in rare diseases and immunology. Previously, Castanon served as a Maître Assistante at the University of Geneva's Biochemistry Department from July 2013 to April 2022, focusing on a multidisciplinary approach to study membrane-cytoskeleton interactions in zebrafish. Additional roles at the University of Geneva included scientific collaborator, facility manager, and editor of a review series on Cell Differentiation. Prior postdoctoral research was conducted at the Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, examining Wnt/PCP pathway functions, and at the Gonzalez-Gaitan lab at the University of Geneva, where Castanon researched cytoskeleton-membrane interactions during cell division in zebrafish embryos. Castanon's academic journey began as a graduate student at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, exploring Notch-Ras signaling pathways. Education includes a PhD in Biology from the University of Valencia and postdoctoral training at the Max-Planck Institute.
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St. Anna Children's Cancer Research Institute (CCRI)
The St. Anna Children's Cancer Research Institute (St Anna CCRI), located in the center of Vienna, the world's most livable city and one of Europe's most important places for biomedical research and life sciences, is an internationally renowned multidisciplinary research institution with the aim to develop and optimize diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic strategies for the treatment of children and adolescents with cancer. To achieve this goal we combine basic research with translational and clinical research and focus on the specific characteristics of childhood tumor diseases in order to provide young patients with the best possible and most innovative therapies. Dedicated research groups in the fields of tumor genomics and epigenomics, immunology, molecular biology, cell biology, bioinformatics and clinical research are working together to harmonize scientific findings with the clinical needs of physicians to ultimately improve the wellbeing of our patients. Through close cooperation between clinic and research, the CCRI provides an ideal environment for cutting-edge research and its translation into clinical practice. To achieve our ultimate goal of advancing the well-being of patients, the CCRI constantly pushes scientific boundaries and strongly promotes close collaboration and exchange with external institutions like the Medical University of Vienna, CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA) and the Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP).