Custodia García-Jiménez received her Ph.D. at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) with a short stay at Harvard University and joined as postdoctoral student funded by Spain (FPU) and EU (Marie Curie) scholarships, Stunnenberg´s lab at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-Heidelberg, Germany), and the Catholic University of Nijmegen, Netherlands (EU-Marie Curie funding); later as researcher she joined Dr Varga-Weisz lab at MCRI, in Surrey, (UK) and returned to Spain, funded by the Ministry of Education at Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, (CSIC) Madrid. Her achievements have widened our understanding of regulation by nuclear receptors, of transcriptional, epigenetic and signalling networks altered in cancer. After becoming Professor of Physiology at University Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) she developed an independent line of research: “molecular connections between diabetes and cancer” maintaining competitive funding by national (MINECO/AEI) and regional (CAM) agencies and combining from her early career research and teaching from (under)graduates in Health Sciences at national (URJC, UAM) and international universities (Montevideo, Uruguay and Tsukuba University in Japan). She has been Ethical Committee Member at CEIC HUFL-CNIO-URJC; Director of the XIX National Congress of Cellular Biology (SEBC). Member of the SEBC Board of Directors. Member of the PDI Hiring Board for the Departments of Biochemistry, and of Cell Biology (UAM, Madrid); Area Coordinator (Physiology) at the Health Sciences School-URJC; and Erasmus Manager.
She has made a major contribution to understanding the molecular links between diabetes and cancer unveiling the mechanisms by which glucose or lipids or vitamin D interact with Wnt signalling and lead to epigenetic modifications that regulate gene expression in in cancer.