RFA5798- SEMINAR SERIES ON BASIC TO TRANSLATIONAL SCIENCES

Lecture: “Immunology of neurodegenerative diseases: from peripheral to CNS changes”.

Dr. Rocha received a Pharm.D. degree (2008), a M.S. in Neuroscience (2011) and a Ph.D. in Physiology and Pharmacology (2014) from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG, Brazil). She also spent one year as a visiting Ph.D. student at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in Leuven, Belgium. Her experience in basic and translational neuroscience, especially in the field of Neuroimmunology, led her to promptly identify and engage in several studies on the immunological mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders, especially neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr. Rocha joined The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science in January 2016. Since then, she has been focused on the study of immune/inflammatory parameters associated with the pathophysiology of Huntington’s disease. Due to common interests in age-related disorders and neuroimmunology/inflammation associated with neurodegeneration, she joined Dr. Soto’s group and she is currently a member of the Mitchell Center For Alzheimer’s Disease & Brain Disorders. Dr. Rocha has received numerous awards and she has published more than 90 peer review papers, which have been cited more than 1,500 times (h-index = 22; i-10 index = 42; Google Scholar).