Dr. Aymara Mas Perucho
Emerging Investigator
Research Group on Reproductive Medicine
Presentation
Dr. Aymara Mas is Senior Principal Investigator at the Carlos Simon Foundation and Miguel Servet Researcher (ISCIII) at the INCLIVA Health Research Institute, Valencia (Spain)
Her research focuses on understanding the factors contributing to the pathophysiology of benign and malignant gynecologic tumors, including smooth muscle tumors and uterine and ovarian cancer.
Dr. Mas performed an international post-doctoral fellowship for 2 years at Augusta University (Georgia, USA), primarily studying uterine disorders, completing her Ph.D. training at La Fe Health Research Institute, Valencia (Spain), with a Sara Borrel Grant (ISCIII).
Over the past 10 years, she has made significant contributions including the functional proof of concept for the existence of somatic stem cells (SSCs) in the human myometrium and uterine leiomyomas (PMID: 24890270) based on side population methods (PMID: 22633281) and specific biomarkers (PMID: 25989979; PMID: 28395335). She also collaborated with many groups to study the role of steroid hormone receptors (PMID: 27739139), signaling pathways (PMID: 30075150), and genetic (PMID: 25542836) and epigenetic alterations (PMID: 25922306) in the pathogenesis and growth of uterine leiomyomas, looking further into new approaches to improve the efficacy of gene therapy against these benign tumors (PMID: 27020169). She has also revealed, through integrative genomic and transcriptomic profiling, the differential molecular signature of uterine leiomyoma versus leiomyosarcoma tumors (PMID: 31121144; PMID: 35216305), giving rise to 2 patent applications.
Her commitment to research excellence has been demonstrated by an established record of 9 research projects (5 as principal investigator) and 26 basic and translational publications in peer-reviewed journals from an area of high relevance, such as female reproductive health, specifically in uterine leiomyomas. She has participated in national and international grants and has been internationally awarded by the Society of Reproductive Investigation (SRI) and the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). She also guides Medicine Degree students in their final projects and Ph.D. students.
Nowadays, her team uses high-throughput sequencing technologies to identify molecular biomarkers associated with tumor growth and progression and develop predictive models that allow non-invasive therapeutic and preventive strategies.

Publications
Molecular Management of High-Grade Serous Ovarian Carcinoma. Punzon-Jimenez P, Lago V, Domingo S, Simon C, Mas A. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2022 Nov 9;23(22):13777. doi: 10.3390/ijms232213777. PMID: 36430255
Projects
Title: Desarrollo de un modelo predictivo para el diagnóstico diferencial temprano de leiomiomas y leiomiosarcomas uterinos
Funding body: Instituto de Salud Carlos III – Cofinanciado FEDER
Principal Investigator: Aymara Mas Perucho
Duration: 2021 – 2023
Total budget: 99.825 €