Maria Alieva is a Senior Postdoctoral researcher in the Prinses Maxima Research Center for pediatric oncology, the Netherlands. She studied biology in the Autonomous University of Madrid and biomedicine in the University of Barcelona. In 2012, she obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Barcelona with a Thesis on cell therapy against glioblastoma.
During her training she developed a keen interest on understand brain tumor malignancy. As a post-docotoral fellow (2013-2017) in Jacco Van Rheenen’s lab in the Hubrecht Institute, Utrecht, she developed an intravital imaging model for studying changes in tumor cell behavior overtime in response to surgical interventions. In 2017 she moved to the Rios group at the Prinses Maxima Center where she focused her research on unraveling the mechanisms behind pediatric brain tumor invasive behavior.
By combining her expertise in intravital imaging, the latest 3D imaging technology developed in the Rios lab and a new computational analysis apporaches she aims to reveal the cellular and molecular mechanisms governing child brain tumor malignancy and to identify novel therapeutic targets to cure these children.