Dr. Adrian Baez Ortega

Biography

Adrian Baez-Ortega is a computational biologist focused on understanding transmissible cancers that emerge, evolve, and spread among groups of animals, particularly marine bivalves. He leads the Bivalve Transmissible Neoplasia Group and has received research funding from prestigious organizations such as the Royal Society and the European Research Council. Adrian completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Computer Science at the University of La Laguna in Spain and earned his PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Cambridge. His doctoral thesis investigated the evolution of transmissible cancer in dogs, earning him the Harold M Weintraub Graduate Student Award and the Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists. In 2020, Adrian joined the Wellcome Sanger Institute as a postdoctoral fellow and contributed to multiple studies on somatic evolution in both human and non-human animal tissues. He has also been elected as a Junior Research Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and as a Senior Research Fellow. His recent work includes co-directing a genomic study of transmissible cancers in marine cockles, which involved collaboration with the University of Santiago de Compostela, covering 11 countries and resulting in publication in Nature Cancer, attracting significant media coverage. In addition to his research, Adrian is committed to mentoring early-career researchers through scientific programming workshops and has developed statistical models used across multiple disciplines.

Research Interests

Experience