Carlos Clavel

Biography 
Carlos Clavel received his BS and MS in Biological Sciences from Saint Louis University in the US. He finished his PhD training in the Cell Therapy lab at the University of Navarra, Spain. Thanks to a collaboration with the laboratory of Dr. Catherine Verfaillie, he had the opportunity of working with Multipotent Adult Progenitor Cells in her groundbreaking laboratories of Minnesota (US) and Leuven (Belgium). At that time, he was focused on the tremendous differentiation potential of human adult stem cells. His research then shifted to understanding how stem cells are instructed to display their potential, and he subsequently joined Dr. Michael Rendl’s laboratory at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York where his research focused on the transcriptional control of the hair inducing fate of Dermal Papilla niche cells. 

Carlos has recently joined IMB as a Project Leader where he is starting up his own research group focusing on understanding the regulation of the hair follicle stem cell niche and its implication in novel therapies for skin pigmentation

Research Interests
Altered skin pigmentation is one of the most common dermatologic disorders that affect 1 in 3 people worldwide. Among these disorders, vitiligo is one of the most serious conditions due to its visible nature and psychological burden. Recent clinical observations in human skin suggest that hair follicles may provide epidermal melanocytes in the process of recovery from vitiligo. The hair follicle melanocyte stem cell niche is the main melanocyte reservoir of the skin and a better understanding of the mechanisms regulating repigmentation is critical for designing novel strategies for vitiligo therapy. We have developed novel genetic tools to study dermal papilla (DP) cells in the hair follicle stem cell niche. And, we have recently shown how in the hair follicle (HF) the DP-specific gene Sox2 is a key regulator of hair growth by controlling keratinocytes migration through the mesenchymal- epithelial crosstalk between the DP niche cells and the stem cell progeny. Now, we have identified a pigment switch in the pelage of DP-specific Sox2 knock down mice and observed abnormal cell signaling in the DP and melanocytes compartments of the HF. This phenotype, strongly suggests that the DP compartment is a regulator of the melanocyte stem cell niche (MeSC). We seek to gain knowledge on the signaling regulation of the MeSC niche and its possible use in novel therapeutic approaches for skin pigmentation disorders.