MariCarmen Lafita Navarro, PhD.

Principal Investigator – Assistant Professor
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Dr. Lafita Navarro is from Rivas, a small town in the region of Zaragoza, Spain. Coming from a farming family and being surrounded by countryside, her appreciation for biology started from a very young age.

With her interest in the biology of disease and her goal on discovering better options for cancer patients, Dr. Lafita Navarro went on to obtain her bachelor’s degree in Biology by the University of Barcelona with specialization in Biomedicine. Then, she earned her Master’s and PhD in Biomedicine and Molecular Biology by the University of Cantabria, Spain. During her PhD, she joined the laboratory of Dr. Javier León at the Biomedicine and Biotechnology Institute of Cantabria (IBBTEC), Spain where she discovered novel transcriptional programs carried out by the MYC biological antagonist MNT and MXD1 in cancer cells. In 2016, Dr. Lafita Navarro joined the laboratory of Dr. Maralice Conacci Sorrell at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, where she discovered key metabolic and nucleolar vulnerabilities of MYC-driven cancer cells and the intimate crosstalk between cell metabolism and nucleolar function in glioblastoma cells.

In 2025, Dr. Lafita Navarro joined the faculty of the University of Virginia to start her independent lab. Her lab studies the metabolic and nucleolar adaptations of glioblastoma cells with the goal of finding specific vulnerabilities that could be used to treat patients in the clinic.

Dr. Lafita Navarro is grateful of the education she has received and the mentors she has had through her scientific career. She is committed and enthusiastic to continue supporting the growth of her mentees both as scientists and people to allow them to have a successful future ahead.

In her free time, Dr. Lafita Navarro enjoys practicing sports, the outdoors, and playing with her dog "Bonita".