Oscar Fornas

Biography:

Oscar Fornas, Ph.D in Biochemistry, is the Head of Flow Cytometry Unit at Centre for Genomic Regulation and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, since 2001, where coordinates the assistance, supervision and training of one of the most advanced flow cytometry platforms in Europe. The Unit assists, supervise and advise more than 300 users from around 120 research groups in Spain and Europe. He supports the use of most flow cytometry applications as well as develops and implements new ones under scientific community needs.

He recently developed the Flow Karyotyping for chromosome sorting, which combined with subsequent chromosome sequencing without amplification by using Oxford Nanopore technologies becomes a new methodology to assemble structurally very complex chromosomes.

Currently, he is focused in develop strategies to detect and isolate nanoparticles by Flow Cytometry. Recently, he has developed an approach for Single-Virus sorting for subsequent single-virus genomics. This methodology allows the possibility to explore the diversity of viruses in different ecosystems and to elucidate the global microbiome, in special, the global virosphere. He has also developed a new approach to identify and isolate Extracellular Vesicles (smaller than 100nm) by Flow Cytometry, to study cell communication and, based on Extracellular Vesicles’ cargo transfer, looking for biomarkers related with diseases. His Unit is becoming a reference site for advanced Flow Cytometry applications and sorting at the single-particle level. Oscar also participates, as membership, in alliances of excellence, as Core4life, an ”Excellence Alliance of Life Science Core Facilities in Europe”.