Adrian Baez-Ortega

Adrian joined the Transmissible Cancer Group as a PhD student from 2015 to 2019. Before moving to Cambridge, he studied undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Computer Science at the University of La Laguna (Spain). After his PhD, Adrian joined Iñigo Martincorena’s group at the Wellcome Sanger Institute as a Postdoctoral Fellow (2020–24), where he contributed to multiple studies of somatic evolution in human and non-human animal tissues.

Adrian is currently a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the Departments of Genetics and Zoology, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He leads the Bivalve Transmissible Neoplasia Group, which is interested in understanding how marine transmissible cancers emerge, evolve and spread in bivalve molluscs including clams, mussels and cockles.

For his doctoral work, which investigated the evolution of CTVT, a parasitic transmissible cancer that has affected dog populations for several millennia, Adrian received honours including the 2020 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, the 2019 Kennel Club Charitable Trust Postgraduate Student Inspiration Award, and the 2017 Abcam Postgraduate Research Prize. His research on CTVT has been featured in prominent international media platforms, including WIRED, The Atlantic, The Times, Gizmodo, El País and The Hindu.

Adrian's side interests include literature, physics, philosophy, and the history of science. He also writes sporadically for his two blogs, divulgatum and in silico.

See Adrian's profile on Google Scholar and Publons.