My scientific interest has been oriented towards the exploration of new strategies for the study and treatment of neurological disorders, in particular ischemic stroke. During the first stage of my career, carried out in Spain, I worked with in vitro models of excitotoxicity and neurodegenerative diseases. Using electrophysiological recordings and fluorescent microscopy I studied the role of mitochondrial permeabilization in the process of cell death related with excitotoxicity and reactive oxygen species.
In 2010 I moved to the Lund Stem Cell Center (Sweden), where I focused my research projects in developing strategies to either reduce neuronal damage or repair injured area after cerebral stroke. Introducing the use of cell therapy with induced pluripotent stem cells, I developed a protocol to generate neuronal precursors from human-skin derived cells for transplantation in a rat stroke model. Then, I carried out studies centered in how these grafted cells integrate into the host neuronal circuitry. I found that thalamo-cortical pathway could be functionally reconstructed in stroke-injured brain using transplantation of human skin-derived neural progenitors. This project resulted in two articles published in the journal Brain (Tornero et al., Brain, 2013 and Tornero et al., Brain, 2017) that have been largely cited (123 and 50 citations, respectively) and one article in the prestigious journal PNAS (Palma-Tortosa et al., PNAS, 2020). 
In parallel, I have closely participated as “Coordinator Group” in a 7th Framework Program Consortium entitled “TargetBrain”, funded by European Comission, focused in the role of monocyte-derived macrophages in spontaneous recovery after stroke. My data revealed that monocytes infiltrated from the blood, which further give rise to macrophages, contribute to functional recovery after stroke in mice. This work resulted in two important publications, where I am listed as second author, published in the Journal of Neuroscience ( Wattananit et al., J. Neurosc., 2016) and the Journal of Neuroinflammation (Ge et al., J. Neuroinflammation, 2017). The study constitutes a strong base for new therapeutic approaches to promote long-term improvement after stroke.
Most importantly, I received my own funding from Stroke-Riksförbundet (2014-2015) and from Hardebo’s Foundation (2015-2017), giving me the opportunity to start my independent lines of research, resulting in the publication of three papers as senior author (Memanishvilli et al., Biomed Mater, 2016, de la Rosa-Prieto et al., Stem Cell Res Ther, 2017 and Memanishvilli et al., Biomed Mater, 2020).
During my 20 years of experience in scientific research, I have acquired knowledge in a wide variety of techniques, such as patch-clamp, fluorescent and confocal microscopy, immunohistochemistry, monosynaptic tracing of neurons with modified rabies virus, optogenetic control of neuronal activity, maintenance and differentiation of human stem cells, intracranial cell and viral transplantation, maintenance of genetic mouse models and analysis of hematopoietic and central nervous system cells with flow cytometry.
As an independent investigator, I am interested in the mechanism of functional integration of grafted neuronal precursors after transplantation into the damaged brain. This research will allow further clinical translation of restorative cell therapies for stroke and other neurodegenerative diseases.