Raúl Jiménez Castaño

#REVIEW 🚨 This Review examines how microenvironmental cues, epigenetic programmes & immune interactions govern disseminated cancer cell dormancy + how this may guide the development of biomarkers & therapies to prevent metastatic relapse. 📖 👇 dlvr.it/TSNYw1

🔥Online now, a Review on EMT as driver of tumor cell plasticity By @NietoAngela and @ruljc Part of our Series on Tumor Heterogeneity and Plasticity: nature.com/collections/gf… nature.com/articles/s4301…

Anyone interested in the future of #cancer therapy must read this’ it’s best summary of latest findings of how brain controls cancer cell.com/cell/fulltext/…

Thrilled to share my final PhD work, “Genetically engineered human cell-based microrobots for selective cancer cell death,” is now out in @ScienceAdvances! 🎯 👉Check out the full paper: science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Online Now: T cell extracellular vesicles go nuclear to turn cold tumors hot dlvr.it/TSJd1y

My own title was, “If my friend Claudia is not conscious, then what the hell is consciousness for?” If Claudia is unconscious, her behaviour shows that an unconscious zombie could survive without consciousness. Why wasn’t natural selection content to evolve competent zombies?

#comment-1031777" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">unherd.com/2026/04/is-ai-… I spent three days trying to persuade myself that Claudia is not conscious. I failed.

So we blocked IFNγ in Mtb infected macaques and….the animals were fine. Turns out mice overestimate the importance of IFNγ in TB because IFNγ drives iNOS in mice but not macaques or humans. This means we don’t actually know how T cells suppress Mtb. rdcu.be/ff9GB

Online Now: A conserved re-epithelialization program underlies malignancy in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma dlvr.it/TSJnjT

A twist in cancer neuroscience with many studies showing hijacking of neurons to promote cancer—melanoma growth slowed by nerve fibers in skin cell.com/neuron/fulltex…

📢Today we launch our Series on Tumor Heterogeneity and Plasticity featuring commissioned Reviews and a selection of articles published in Nature Cancer! Read about EMT, CAF plasticity, immune cell plasticity, cellular neighborhoods and more here: 🔗nature.com/collections/gf…

MSS metastatic colorectal cancer is usually “immune-cold,” but this Nature Communications study shows that response to TMZ → nivolumab/ipilimumab is not explained by TMB alone. Spatial biology matters. Responders showed cytotoxic CD8⁺/GZMB⁺ and CD8⁺/Ki67⁺ T cells in tumor/TSI regions, immune-permissive stromal signals such as CXCL9/CXCL10, and favorable cellular neighborhoods. Non-responders showed CAF/endothelial-associated immune exclusion and early peripheral CD8⁺TIGIT⁺ / CD4⁺PD-1⁺ expansion after TMZ—potential resistance biomarkers. Key message: in MSS CRC, chemo-immunotherapy may work only when TMZ-induced antigenicity meets the right spatial immune architecture. Reference Choo J, Zhao JJ, Lau MC, et al. Spatial predictors of response to chemo-immunotherapy in microsatellite stable metastatic colorectal cancer. Nature Communications. 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-72204-2.

Online Now: Dissecting the cellular architecture of breast cancer brain metastases reveals prognostically distinct immune landscapes dlvr.it/TSFvTB

"In this study, we present a genome-scale map of genetic interactions in the human haploid cell line HAP1, based on CRISPR-based perturbation of ∼4 million gene pairs. The resulting network comprises ∼89,000 high-confidence gene-gene interactions" doi.org/10.1016/j.cell…

Exciting new review in @NatureCancer on EMT as a driver of cancer cell plasticity 👇 This work by @ruljc & @NietoAngela highlights how EMT is not a binary switch, but a spectrum of dynamic states that enable tumour progression, metastasis and therapy resistance.

⚪ Resultados que aportan una nueva perspectiva sobre el origen del potencial metastático x.com/CSIC/status/20…

Single-cell survival analysis is here, and it's smarter than pseudobulk. scSurvival (Cancer Discovery 2026) uses AI to score risk cell by cell: 🔴 SPP1+ macrophages = high hazard 🟢 TCF7+ stem-like T cells = protective 📊 C-index 0.812 in melanoma ICB cohort, open source The next biomarker isn't a gene. It's a cell state. Congrats to @ZhengXiaCompBio on this work! bit.ly/4eAJwv6 #scRNAseq #oncology #AIoncology

@NeuroAlc @ruljc @UniversidadMH @CSIC @CSICval @doctorado_umh Congrats! So proud of you! All the best for the next step in your career @TheCrick @fcicca

See our new review @NatureCancer on EMT as a driver of cancer cell plasticity. nature.com/articles/s4301… Congrats Raul @ruljc as today you also did a fantastic job at your PhD defense Very proud of you! @neuroalc @RACiencias @CSIC @ASEICAnews @CancerCSIC @UniversidadMH

🎉 Enhorabuena al recién nombrado hoy Dr. Raúl Jiménez Castaño @ruljc por su defensa de #TesisIN y felicitaciones a su directora de tesis, la Dra. Ángela Nieto @NietoAngela🎉