Dr Marina Naval Sanchez
NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
Researcher biography
Dr. Marina Naval-Sanchez is a NHMRC Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at The University of Queensland (Australia). She pursued postdoctoral studies in 2019-2024 in the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland (Australia) and as an Office Chief Executive (OCE) Fellow in 2015-2019 at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) (Australia). She received her PhD in Molecular Biosciences in 2014 from KULeuven (Belgium). She received her MSc in Applied Bioinformatics in 2009 from Cranfield University (UK) and MSc in Agriculture Engineering in 2008 from the Universitat de Lleida (Spain).
Marina's research program applies state-of-the-art bioinformatic, machine learning, and genetic and genomic tools to unearth the master regulators and enhancer grammar governing development and ageing across species (mouse and human) and to decipher the genomic (regulatory) impact of evolution, domestication and human selection in farm species (sheep, cattle, salmon). Her research outcomes have been published in high-impact journals such as Cell Metabolism, Nature Communications, Genome Biology, Nucleic Acids Research, Genome Research and Molecular Biology and Evolution.
Her research efforts have been supported by domestic and international fellowships and grants, including the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC, EL1 2024 Recipient), Advance Queensland, UQ Innovation Connections, CSIRO Scientific Investment Projects, CSIRO OCE Fellowships, and Flanders Wetesnchappelijk Onderzoek (FWO) PhD Fellowship.
Book Chapter
Potier, Delphine, Atak, Zeynep Kalender, Sanchez, Marina Naval, Herrmann, Carl and Aerts, Stein (2012). Using cisTargetX to predict transcriptional targets and networks in Drosophila. Gene regulatory networks: methods and protocols. (pp. 291-314) edited by Bart Deplancke and Nele Gheldof. New York, NY, United States: Humana Press. doi: 10.1007/978-1-61779-292-2_18
Journal Articles
Frampton, Emmanuelle, Som, Priyanka, Hill, Brittany, Yu, Alexander, Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Nefzger, Chistian M., Noordstra, Ivar, Gordon, Emma and Schimmel, Lilian (2024). Endothelial c-Src mediates neovascular tuft formation in oxygen-induced retinopathy. The American Journal of Pathology, 194 (12), 2239-2251. doi: 10.1016/j.ajpath.2024.09.003
Patrick, Ralph, Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Deshpande, Nikita, Huang, Yifei, Zhang, Jingyu, Chen, Xiaoli, Yang, Ying, Tiwari, Kanupriya, Esmaeili, Mohammadhossein, Tran, Minh, Mohamed, Amin R., Wang, Binxu, Xia, Di, Ma, Jun, Bayliss, Jacqueline, Wong, Kahlia, Hun, Michael L., Sun, Xuan, Cao, Benjamin, Cottle, Denny L., Catterall, Tara, Barzilai-Tutsch, Hila, Troskie, Robin-Lee, Chen, Zhian, Wise, Andrea F., Saini, Sheetal, Soe, Ye Mon, Kumari, Snehlata, Sweet, Matthew J. ... Nefzger, Christian M. (2024). The activity of early-life gene regulatory elements is hijacked in aging through pervasive AP-1-linked chromatin opening. Cell Metabolism, 36 (8), 1858-1881.e23. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2024.06.006
Wu, Zhixuan, Shen, Sophie, Mizikovsky, Dalia, Cao, Yuanzhao, Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Tan, Siew Zhuan, Alvarez, Yanina D., Sun, Yuliangzi, Chen, Xiaoli, Zhao, Qiongyi, Kim, Daniel, Yang, Pengyi, Hill, Timothy A., Jones, Alun, Fairlie, David P., Pébay, Alice, Hewitt, Alex W., Tam, Patrick P.L., White, Melanie D., Nefzger, Christian M. and Palpant, Nathan J. (2024). Wnt dose escalation during the exit from pluripotency identifies tranilast as a regulator of cardiac mesoderm. Developmental Cell, 59 (6), 705-722.e8. doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2024.01.019
Gòdia, Marta, Lian, Yu, Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Ponte, Inma, Rodríguez-Gil, Joan Enric, Sanchez, Armand and Clop, Alex (2023). Micrococcal nuclease sequencing of porcine sperm suggests enriched co-location between retained histones and genomic regions related to semen quality and early embryo development. PeerJ, 11 e15520, 1-25. doi: 10.7717/peerj.15520
Mohamed, Amin R., Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Menzies, Moira, Evans, Bradley, King, Harry, Reverter, Antonio and Kijas, James W. (2022). Leveraging transcriptome and epigenome landscapes to infer regulatory networks during the onset of sexual maturation. BMC Genomics, 23 (1) 413, 1-19. doi: 10.1186/s12864-022-08514-8
Mizikovsky, Dalia, Naval Sanchez, Marina, Nefzger, Christian M, Cuellar Partida, Gabriel and Palpant, Nathan J (2022). Organization of gene programs revealed by unsupervised analysis of diverse gene–trait associations. Nucleic Acids Research, 50 (15) e87, 1-12. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkac413
Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Deshpande, Nikita, Tran, Minh, Zhang, Jingyu, Alhomrani, Majid, Alsanie, Walaa, Nguyen, Quan and Nefzger, Christian M. (2022). Benchmarking of ATAC Sequencing Data From BGI’s Low-Cost DNBSEQ-G400 Instrument for Identification of Open and Occupied Chromatin Regions. Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, 9 900323, 1-15. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2022.900323
Sinniah, Enakshi, Wu, Zhixuan, Shen, Sophie, Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Chen, Xiaoli, Lim, Junxian, Helfer, Abbigail, Iyer, Abishek, Tng, Jiahui, Lucke, Andrew J., Reid, Robert C., Redd, Meredith A., Nefzger, Christian M., Fairlie, David P. and Palpant, Nathan J. (2022). Temporal perturbation of histone deacetylase activity reveals a requirement for HDAC1–3 in mesendoderm cell differentiation. Cell Reports, 39 (7) 110818, 1-21. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.110818
Alexandre, Pâmela A., Naval-Sánchez, Marina, Menzies, Moira, Nguyen, Loan T., Porto-Neto, Laercio R., Fortes, Marina R. S. and Reverter, Antonio (2021). Chromatin accessibility and regulatory vocabulary across indicine cattle tissues. Genome Biology, 22 (1) 273, 273. doi: 10.1186/s13059-021-02489-7
Hudson, N. J., Porto-Neto, L., Naval-Sanchez, M., Lyons, R. E. and Reverter, Antonio (2021). A conserved haplotype in Wagyu cattle contains RAB4A whose encoded protein regulates glucose trafficking in muscle and fat cells. Animal Genetics, 52 (3), 275-283. doi: 10.1111/age.13054
Allais-Bonnet, Aurélie, Hintermann, Aurélie, Deloche, Marie-Christine, Cornette, Raphaël, Bardou, Philippe, Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Pinton, Alain, Haruda, Ashleigh, Grohs, Cécile, Zakany, Jozsef, Bigi, Daniele, Medugorac, Ivica, Putelat, Olivier, Greyvenstein, Ockert, Hadfield, Tracy, Jemaa, Slim Ben, Bunevski, Gjoko, Menzi, Fiona, Hirter, Nathalie, Paris, Julia M., Hedges, John, Palhiere, Isabelle, Rupp, Rachel, Lenstra, Johannes A., Gidney, Louisa, Lesur, Joséphine, Schafberg, Renate, Stache, Michael, Wandhammer, Marie-Dominique ... Capitan, Aurélien (2021). Analysis of polycerate mutants reveals the evolutionary co-option of HOXD1 for horn patterning in Bovidae. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 38 (6), 2260-2272. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msab021
Sun, Xuan, Cao, Benjamin, Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Pham, Tony, Sun, Yu Bo Yang, Williams, Brenda, Heazlewood, Shen Y, Deshpande, Nikita, Li, Jinhua, Kraus, Felix, Rae, James, Nguyen, Quan, Yari, Hamed, Schröder, Jan, Heazlewood, Chad K, Fulton, Madeline, Hatwell-Humble, Jessica, Das Gupta, Kaustav, Kapetanovic, Ronan, Chen, Xiaoli, Sweet, Matthew J, Parton, Robert G, Ryan, Michael T, Polo, Jose M, Nefzger, Christian M and Nilsson, Susan K (2021). Nicotinamide riboside attenuates age-associated metabolic and functional changes in hematopoietic stem cells. Nature Communications, 12 (1) 2665, 1-17. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-22863-0
Alexandre, Pâmela A., Hudson, Nicholas J., Lehnert, Sigrid A., Fortes, Marina R. S., Naval-Sánchez, Marina, Nguyen, Loan T., Porto-Neto, Laercio R. and Reverter, Antonio (2020). Genome-wide co-expression distributions as a metric to prioritize genes of functional importance. Genes, 11 (10) 1231, 1231-13. doi: 10.3390/genes11101231
Naval-Sánchez, Marina, Porto-Neto, Laercio R., Cardoso, Diercles F., Hayes, Ben J., Daetwyler, Hans D., Kijas, James and Reverter, Antonio (2020). Selection signatures in tropical cattle are enriched for promoter and coding regions and reveal missense mutations in the damage response gene HELB. Genetics Selection Evolution, 52 (1) 27, 27. doi: 10.1186/s12711-020-00546-6
Lau, Li Yieng, Reverter, Antonio, Hudson, Nicholas J., Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Fortes, Marina R. S. and Alexandre, Pâmela A. (2020). Dynamics of gene co-expression networks in time-series data: a case study in Drosophila melanogaster embryogenesis. Frontiers in Genetics, 11 517, 517. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2020.00517
Naval-Sanchez, Marina, McWilliam, Sean, Evans, Bradley, Yáñez, José M., Houston, Ross D. and Kijas, James W. (2020). Changed Patterns of Genomic Variation Following Recent Domestication: Selection Sweeps in Farmed Atlantic Salmon. Frontiers in Genetics, 11 264. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2020.00264
Reverter, Antonio, Vitezica, Zulma G., Naval-Sánchez, Marina, Henshall, John, Raidan, Fernanda, Li, Yutao, Meyer, Karin, Hudson, Nicholas J., Porto-Neto, Laercio R. and Legarra, Andrés (2020). Association analysis of loci implied in 'buffering' epistasis. Journal of Animal Science, 98 (3) skaa045. doi: 10.1093/jas/skaa045
Alexandre, Pâmela A., Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Porto-Neto, Laercio R., Ferraz, José Bento S., Reverter, Antonio and Fukumasu, Heidge (2019). Systems biology reveals NR2F6 and TGFB1 as key regulators of feed efficiency in beef cattle. Frontiers in Genetics, 10 (MAR) 230. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2019.00230
Dobreva, Mariya P., Escalona, Vanesa Abon, Lawson, Kirstie A., Sanchez, Marina N., Ponomarev, Ljuba C., Pereira, Paulo N. G., Stryjewska, Agata, Criem, Nathan, Huylebroeck, Danny, Lopes, Susana M. Chuva de Sousa, Aerts, Stein and Zwijsen, An (2018). Correction: Amniotic ectoderm expansion in mouse occurs via distinct modes and requires SMAD5-mediated signalling (vol 145, dev157222, 2018). Development, 145 (15). doi: 10.1242/dev.169722
Dobreva, Mariya P., Escalona, Vanesa Abon, Lawson, Kirstie A., Sanchez, Marina N., Ponomarev, Ljuba C., Pereira, Paulo N. G., Stryjewska, Agata, Criem, Nathan, Huylebroeck, Danny, Lopes, Susana M. Chuva de Sousa, Aerts, Stein and Zwijsen, An (2018). Amniotic ectoderm expansion in mouse occurs via distinct modes and requires SMAD5-mediated signalling. Development, 145 (13) dev157222, dev157222. doi: 10.1242/dev.157222
Hudson, Nicholas J., Naval-Sánchez, Marina, Porto-Neto, Laercio, Pérez-Enciso, Miguel and Reverter, Antonio (2018). A haplotype information theory method reveals genes of evolutionary interest in European vs. Asian pigs. Journal of Animal Science, 96 (8), 3064-3069. doi: 10.1093/jas/sky225
Kijas, James, McWilliam, Sean, Sanchez, Marina Naval, Kube, Peter, King, Harry, Evans, Bradley, Nome, Torfinn, Lien, Sigbjorn and Verbyla, Klara (2018). Evolution of sex determination loci in Atlantic salmon. Scientific Reports, 8 (1) 5664, 5664. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-23984-1
Nguyen, Quan H., Tellam, Ross L., Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Porto-Neto, Laercio R., Barendse, William, Reverter, Antonio, Hayes, Benjamin, Kijas, James and Dalrymple, Brian P. (2018). Mammalian genomic regulatory regions predicted by utilizing human genomics, transcriptomics, and epigenetics data. Gigascience, 7 (3), 1-17. doi: 10.1093/gigascience/gix136
Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Nguyen, Quan, McWilliam, Sean, Porto-Neto, Laercio R., Tellam, Ross, Vuocolo, Tony, Reverter, Antonio, Perez-Enciso, Miguel, Brauning, Rudiger, Clarke, Shannon, McCulloch, Alan, Zamani, Wahid, Naderi, Saeid, Rezaei, Hamid Reza, Pompanon, Francois, Taberlet, Pierre, Worley, Kim C., Gibbs, Richard A., Muzny, Donna M., Jhangiani, Shalini N., Cockett, Noelle, Daetwyler, Hans and Kijas, James (2018). Sheep genome functional annotation reveals proximal regulatory elements contributed to the evolution of modern breeds. Nature Communications, 9 (1) 859. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-02809-1
Neto, Marta, Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Potier, Delphine, Pereira, Paulo S., Geerts, Dirk, Aerts, Stein and Casares, Fernando (2017). Nuclear receptors connect progenitor transcription factors to cell cycle control. Scientific Reports, 7 (1) 4845, 4845. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-04936-7
Kijas, James W., Hadfield, Tracy, Naval Sanchez, Marina and Cockett, Noelle (2016). Genome-wide association reveals the locus responsible for four-horned ruminant. Animal Genetics, 47 (2), 258-62. doi: 10.1111/age.12409
Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Potier, Delphine, Hulselmans, Gert, Christiaens, Valerie and Aerts, Stein (2015). Identification of lineage-specific Cis-regulatory modules associated with variation in transcription factor binding and chromatin activity using Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 32 (9), 2441-2455. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msv107
Potier, Delphine, Davie, Kristofer, Hulselmans, Gert, Sanchez, Marina Naval, Haagen, Lotte, Van Anh Huynh-Thu,, Koldere, Duygu, Celik, Arzu, Geurts, Pierre, Christiaens, Valerie and Aerts, Stein (2014). Mapping gene regulatory networks in Drosophila eye development by large-scale transcriptome perturbations and motif inference. Cell Reports, 9 (6), 2290-2303. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2014.11.038
Janky, Rekin's, Verfaillie, Annelien, Imrichova, Hana, Van de Sande, Bram, Standaert, Laura, Christiaens, Valerie, Hulselmans, Gert, Herten, Koen, Sanchez, Marina Naval, Potier, Delphine, Svetlichnyy, Dmitry, Atak, Zeynep Kalender, Fiers, Mark, Marine, Jean-Christophe and Aerts, Stein (2014). iRegulon: From a gene list to a gene regulatory network using large motif and track collections. PLOS Computational Biology, 10 (7) e1003731, e1003731. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003731
Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Potier, Delphine, Haagen, Lotte, Sanchez, Maximo, Munck, Sebastian, Van de Sande, Bram, Casares, Fernando, Christiaens, Valerie and Aerts, Stein (2013). Comparative motif discovery combined with comparative transcriptomics yields accurate targetome and enhancer predictions. Genome Research, 23 (1), 74-88. doi: 10.1101/gr.140426.112
Broeck, Lies Vanden, Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Adachi, Yoshitsugu, Diaper, Danielle, Dourlen, Pierre, Chapuis, Julien, Kleinberger, Gernot, Gistelinck, Marc, Van Broeckhoven, Christine, Lambert, Jean-Charles, Hirth, Frank, Aerts, Stein, Callaerts, Patrick and Dermaut, Bart (2013). TDP-43 loss-of-function causes neuronal loss due to defective steroid receptor-mediated gene program switching in Drosophila. Cell Reports, 3 (1), 160-172. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2012.12.014
Aerts, Stein, Quan, Xiao-Jiang, Claeys, Annelies, Sanchez, Marina Naval, Tate, Phillip, Yan, Jiekun and Hassan, Bassem A. (2010). Robust target gene discovery through transcriptome perturbations and genome-wide enhancer predictions in drosophila uncovers a regulatory basis for sensory specification. PLoS Biology, 8 (7) e1000435, e1000435. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000435
Companys, Encarnacio, Naval-Sanchez, Marina, Martinez-Micaelo, Neus, Puy, Jaume and Galceran, Josep (2008). Measurement of free zinc concentration in wine with AGNES. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 56 (18), 8296-8302. doi: 10.1021/jf8013475
Conference Paper
Alexandre, Pâmela A., Naval-Sánchez, Marina, Menzies, Moira, Nguyen, Loan T., Porto-Neto, Laercio, Fortes, Marina R.S. and Reverter, Antonio (2021). Chromatin accessibility and regulatory vocabulary in indicine cattle. 38th International Society of Animal Genetics (ISAG), Virtual, 26-30 July 2021. Champaign, IL United States: ISAG.