Dr. Garmendia is an Ikerbasque and Ramón y Cajal Researcher in the Oncology Area at the Biogipuzkoa HRI. She joined Biogipuzkoa HRI in March 2023, where her research is focused on the study of the role of inflammation in the reprogramming of the lung tumor microenvironment. The objective of her research line is to harness this knowledge for the identification of novel diagnostic, predictive and prognostic biomarkers and the development of new therapeutic strategies (targeted therapies and immunotherapies) in lung cancer.

Dr. Irati Garmendia has developed her scientific career in cancer signaling and immunotherapy. She graduated in Biology and Biochemistry (University of Navarra, 2013) and obtained a Master in Biomedical Research. She was funded by a Predoctoral Fellowship from the Basque Government to perform her PhD Thesis under the supervision of Dr. Luis Montuenga and Dr. Jackeline Agorreta in the Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA, Pamplona). During her PhD, Dr. Garmendia studied the biological role of SRC family kinases in non-small cell lung cancer and evaluated YES1 kinase as a predictive marker of response to the multikinase inhibitor dasatinib (Garmendia et al, AJRCCM 2019). Her work demonstrated that lung cancer patients harboring YES1 amplification/overexpression may benefit from dasatinib, a treatment for which there are still no predictive markers of response. After defending her Thesis in December 2018, she set a new goal in the project. She analyzed the effect of SRC family kinases on the lung tumor microenvironment and tested the combination treatment of dasatinib and anti-PD-1 antibody in lung cancer, which led to a co-first authored manuscript (Redin, Garmendia, et al, J Immunother Cancer 2021). During her Thesis, she performed an international stay in the Vancouver Prostate Centre (Canada) supervised by Dr. Michael E. Cox, thanks to a traveling fellowship from The Company of Biologists.

Due to her growing interest in the tumor microenvironment and its effect on tumor progression, Dr. Garmendia joined the group of Dr. Isabelle Cremer at the Centre the Recherche des Cordeliers – Sorbonne Université (Paris), to gain insight in cancer immunology and immunotherapy. During her Postdoc (2019-2022), she studied the pro-tumoral effect of respiratory viruses on the progression of lung cancer, which occurs through the modulation of the anti-tumor T cell response (Garmendia et al, Cancer Immunol Res 2023). Moreover, she also explored the molecular mechanisms involved in that effect. For this aim, she obtained a prestigious Post-doctoral Fellowship from SIRIC-CARPEM (Site de Recherche Intégrée sur le Cancer – Cancer Research for Personalized Medicine, established by the French National Cancer Institute) in September 2021. During her Postdoc, Dr. Garmendia acquired an extensive experience in immune-oncology, in managing lung cancer mouse models and 3D cell cultures.

Dr. Garmendia is the author of 11 scientific manuscripts and her publications have been highly cited (h-index of 9, >300 citations). Being aware of the importance of an adequate dissemination of research data to the society, she also participates in divulgation activities, participating in round tables and giving talks to associations of cancer patients and students.