García-Font N

Biography

After finishing Pharmacy degree I decided to study a Masters in Neuroscience. During that period I met Professor María Jesús Oset and Doctor José Luis Marco and collaborated with them in a project related to the development of novel pyranotacrines as interesting candidates for the treatment of Alzheimer´s disease (García-Font N. et al., 2016 ‎Eur. J. Med. Chem).
When I finished that Masters, Professor Oset encouraged me to continue with the Doctorate in Biochemistry under the supervision of Professor José Sánchez-Prieto about Fragile X syndrome, which is an inherited form of autism. As part of this group, my mission has been the study of three metabotropic receptors (CB1, beta adrenergic and Metabotropic glutamate 7) located in the presynapse. I discovered two relevant alterations in the beta adrenergic pathway that affect the enhancement of glutamate release not only in the cerebral cortex (García-Font N. et al., 2019. Neurobiol. Dis.) but also in cerebellum. All the results were gathered together in my Thesis work which was defended in November of 2019. After that, I have continued with my postdoc in Edinburgh with Professor Richard Morris. I am conducting a project about social alterations and possible treatments for fragile X syndrome.
I have published 8 scientific papers (two of them as first author) and one dissemination article. I presented 6 oral communications and 1 poster in national meetings and I obtained two prizes: accésit of the IV Jornada de Investigación en Doctorado VetInDoc PhDay and Premio Antonio Doadrio López of the Real Academia Nacional de Farmacia. I also taught a seminar in Masters of Neuroscience for four years and collaborated in the laboratory practices in Pharmacy and Veterinary degrees.