Ylenia Jabalera obtained her BSc in Biochemistry (2016) and MSc degrees in Biotechnology (2017) and Edaphology (2021) from the University of Granada, Spain. She earned her PhD in Fundamental and Systems Biology in 2021, focusing on magnetic nanosystems for nanomedicine and nanotechnology.
In 2021, Dr. Jabalera joined CIC nanoGUNE, where she expanded her expertise in molecular evolution and computational enzyme design. In 2023, she moved to CIC bioGUNE in the Synthetic Biology Lab as a Juan de la Cierva Fellow, contributing to the development of synthetic CRISPR-Cas nucleases for genome editing. Her work included international research stays at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research in Germany.
In 2025, she was awarded both the la Caixa Junior Leader Fellowship and the Ikerbasque Research Fellowship. She currently holds the position of Emerging Scientist. Her research line, Design and Characterization of Novel Genome Editing Tools through Molecular Evolution, focuses on the evolutionary design of genome engineering tools based on RNA-guided transposons.
