Mariano Molina Beitia

Mariano Molina, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at Karolinska Institutet. His work sits at the interface of microbiology, cancer, and translational research, with a focus on improving disease detection through novel biomarker approaches.

Originally from Panama, he trained as a medical technologist before pursuing an MSc and PhD in Microbiology at Radboud University in the Netherlands. His doctoral research explored the role of the cervicovaginal microbiome in high-risk HPV infections. He later continued as a postdoctoral researcher at Amsterdam UMC, working on RNA-based biomarkers for cervical cancer.

Mariano is actively involved in the International Papillomavirus Society (IPVS), where he serves as a Board Member and chairs the Early Career Committee.

My research focuses on the development of non-invasive biomarkers for cancer detection and monitoring. I am particularly interested in liquid biopsy approaches, including circulating nucleic acids and bacterial extracellular vesicles (BEVs), to capture early disease signals from blood and other biofluids.

I work at the intersection of microbiology and oncology, studying host-microbiome interactions in cancer, with a focus on HPV-associated malignancies. My work integrates multiomics data to identify clinically relevant biomarkers and understand underlying biological mechanisms.

More broadly, I am interested in translating molecular insights into diagnostic tools that can be applied in real-world and low-resource settings.