Carola Maturana, PhD. Associate Research Scholar
I completed my BSc in Biochemistry at the Universidad Austral de Chile and MSc in Neuroscience at the Universidad de Valparaíso, studying effect of odorants on the expression of c-fos in zebrafish. I did my second MSc and PhD in Physiological Sciences at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. I studied involvement of connexin 43 and pannexin 1 hemichannels of gilal cells in the neuroinflammatory response induced by glucocorticoid maternal. I was awarded a grant from the Universidad Católica Accelerator Program, to study the use of selective inhibitors of hemichannels formed by connexins to treat epilepsy. Then, I moved to Colorado State University, where I worked on the modulation of anestrus in sheep by hypothalamic estrogen receptors.
In 2017 I started my Postdoc in Engel lab at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. I identified and validated three small pan-neuronal promoters isolated from the genome of the alphaherpesvirus. I validated the transgene expression and AAV vectors biodistribution driven by LAP2 promoter in peripheral organs. I developed an assay for single-cell quantification of incoming AAV genome in neurons. Currently, I am working as Associate Research in the optimization of AAV expression cassettes to improve packaging capacity and transgene expression.
You can find my current Resume here
Viral Neuroengineering Lab
Princeton Neuroscience Institute
Laboratory A66
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
Nature Gene Therapy cover highlights our study on quantifying AAV genome co-expression at the single-cell level
Cover Credit: Mouse brain prefrontal cortex transduced with a mixture of AAV vectors.