Dr Carina Paola Cornejo Páramo is a Computational Biologist with a PhD in Bioinformatics (UNSW, Sydney 2024) and Bs in Genomic Sciences (National Autonomous University of Mexico 2018) with expertise in gene regulation, epigenomics, machine learning and spatial transcriptomics. Her research focuses on uncovering molecular mechanisms underlaying immunotherapy resistance in melanoma combining advanced spatial transcriptomics with machine learning and statistical modelling. During her PhD at the University of New South Wales, Dr Cornejo Páramo investigated the evolution and function of cis-regulatory elements (enhancers) across animal species and life stages, developing a novel computational pipeline to decode the features that drive gene regulation. She also investigated the epigenetic and transcriptomic changes associated with ageing and exercise in lung cells.

Currently, Dr. Cornejo Páramo applies her expertise in gene regulation and bioinformatics to study the tumour microenvironment in melanoma using spatial transcriptomics. Her work aims to define cellular niches and cell interactions associated with immunotherapy resistance. Her research interests include multi-omics data integration, gene regulation, spatial modelling of cell-cell communication, and the application of machine learning to dissect immunotherapy resistance.