Postdoctoral Fellow
University of California, San Diego
San Diego, California, United States
My long-term research interest is to develop a comprehensive knowledge of pancreas biology. Specifically, I would like to uncover mechanisms that regulate immune cell signaling in the tumor microenvironment. My previous training has led me to pursue a career studying pancreatic cancer biology through which I have gained substantial experience working in a wide variety of research disciplines including diabetes, physiology, molecular biology, and human genetics. My PhD training was done at the Univeristy of Miami (FL) and focused on studying paracrine communication networks in the endocrine pancreas between islet macrophages and the pancreatic beta cell. I gained expertise in cell and biological assays, advanced microscopy, and technically complicated procedures to perform experiments using living pancreatic slices from human and mouse pancreata. I received a postdoctoral fellowship (American Heart Association) with my graduate mentor to study the biology of human islet macrophages during type 2 diabetes. During this time, I also contributed to high impact publications identifying paracrine interactions of the autonomic nervous system.
My interest in pancreatic cancer stemmed from attending the Gordon Research Conference “Pancreatic Diseases” (2019). This conference aims to facilitate new collaborations between different fields by integrating aspects of exocrine, endocrine, and cancer biology. Based on my experiences at this conference, I decided to make a career change to study pancreatic cancer in order to investigate the role of the tumor microenvironment during pancreatic cancer. Under my current mentor Dr. Andrew Lowy, I have been awarded the Ruth Kirschstein NIH Fellowship (F32), which has provided funding to studying mechanisms that allow sympathetic nerves to communicate with immune cells and tumor cells via neurotransmitters within pancreatic tumors. In addition to pancreatic cancer reasearch, my interests have been to develope organotypic slice models to study tumors of the gastrointestinal track including pancreatic, appendix, and colon.
I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
10:31 AM – 10:39 AM CST
Saturday, March 12, 2022
10:31 AM – 10:39 AM CST