Dr Pablo de Felipe is a Biotechnology Quality Assessor at the Spanish Medicines Agency. He studied at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Madrid, Spain) where he obtained both, his BSc in Chemical Sciences (1994) and his PhD in Molecular Biology (2000). During his PhD he was part of the team that conducted the first Spanish gene therapy clinical trial, using retrovirus to destroy brain tumours. In the late 1990’s he was one of the pioneers in the use of the small 2A peptide from the Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) to improve vectors for gene therapy and other biotechnological applications. He moved in 2001 to the University of St Andrews (UK) to conduct further postdoctoral research on virology and the 2A peptide as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Biomolecular Sciences. He returned to Spain in 2008.

Since the 1990’s, Dr de Felipe is a collaborator of GBU (the Spanish movement associated to IFES) and a speaker on science/faith issues, having published several papers and books. He is interested in the historical relations between science and Christianity, in particular two historical episodes that were dominated by confrontation: the debate about the shape of the earth in the centuries leading to the Middle Ages, and the debate about the movement of the earth in the 16th and 17th centuries. He is also interested in the bioethical challenges posed by gene therapy and cloning. In addition, he has studied science and faith relations in contemporary movements as Bible Codes and Intelligent Design. Since the mid 1990’s, Dr de Felipe has been in close contact with the Seminario Evangélico Unido de Teología (El Escorial, Madrid, Spain), where he is currently in charge of the Science and Faith Program (www.centroseut.org/cienciayfe).

Publications in science and religion

  • P. de Felipe (2006). C.S. Lewis. H&D editores and Publicaciones Andamio. Madrid and Barcelona, Spain.
  • P. de Felipe (2006). El código secreto de la Biblia y la cábala (parts I & II). Edificación Cristiana 223:9-11; 224:11-13.
  • P. de Felipe (2003). ¡Dolly ha muerto! Kerigma 1:25, 26.
  • P. de Felipe (2001). El De Revolutionibus de Copérnico: la gestación de un libro que cambió la ciencia y la teología. Historia para el debate 6:48-56.
  • P. de Felipe (2000). Apuntes para el debate histórico de la cosmología bíblica. Alétheia 17:67-76.
  • P. de Felipe (1999). Bases científicas de la clonación y cuestiones éticas. Alianza Evangélica Española. Barcelona, Spain.
  • P. de Felipe (1999). De la cábala al ‘El código secreto de la Biblia’. CLIE. Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain.
  • P. de Felipe (1998). El código secreto de la Biblia y la cábala (parts I & II). Cristianismo Protestante 6:33-40; 7:41-48.
  • P. de Felipe (1998). Sobre “el debate de los orígenes”. Alétheia 14:62-64.

Selected recent science publications

  • G. A. Luke, P. de Felipe, A. N. Lukashev, S. Kallioinen, E. A. Bruno & M. D. Ryan (2008). Occurrence, function, and evolutionary origins of ‘2A like’ sequences in virus genomes. Journal of General Virology 89: 1036-1042.
  • G. M. Funston, S. E. Kallioinen, P. de Felipe, M. D. Ryan & R. D. Iggo (2008). Expression of heterologous genes in oncolytic adenoviruses using picornaviral 2A sequences that trigger ribosome skipping. Journal of General Virology 89:389-396.
  • S.R. Heras, M.C. Thomas, M. García, P. de Felipe, J.-L. García-Pérez, M. D. Ryan & M. C. López (2006). L1Tc non-LTR retrotransposons from Trypanosoma cruzi contain a functional viral-like self-cleaving 2A sequence in frame with the active proteins they encode. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences 63:1449-1460.
  • P. de Felipe, G. A. Luke, L. E. Hughes, C. Halpin & M. D. Ryan (2006). E UNUM PLURIBUS: co-expression of multiple proteins from a single self-processing polyprotein. Trends in Biotechnology 24:68-75.
  • P. de Felipe & M. D. Ryan (2004). Targeting of proteins derived from self-processing polyproteins containing multiple signal sequences. Traffic 5:616 – 626.
  • P. de Felipe, L. E. Hughes, M. D. Ryan & J. D. Brown (2003). Co-translational, intra-ribosomal cleavage of polypeptides by the foot-and-mouth disease virus 2A peptide. Journal of Biological Chemistry 278:11441-11448.
  • P. de Felipe & M. Izquierdo (2000). Tricistronic and tetracistronic retroviral vectors for gene transfer. Human Gene Therapy 11:1921-1931.
  • V. Martín, M. L. Cortés, P. de Felipe, A. Farsetti, N. B. Calcaterra & M. Izquierdo (2000). Cancer gene therapy by thyroid hormone-mediated expression of toxin genes. Cancer Research 60:3218-3224.
  • M. L. Cortés, P. de Felipe, V. Martín, M. A. Hughes & M. Izquierdo (1998). Successful use of a plant gene in the treatment of cancer in vivo. Gene Therapy 5:1499-1507.
  • M. Izquierdo, V. Martín, P. de Felipe, J. M. Izquierdo, A. Pérez-Higueras, M. Cortés, J. F. Paz, A. Isla & M. G. Blázquez (1996). Human malignant brain tumor response to herpes simplex thymidine kinase (HSVtk)/ganciclovir gene therapy. Gene Therapy 3:491-495.

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