María Elena Díaz Casado

Biography

Dr. Díaz is postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Granada, Spain. She finished her studies in Biology at the University of Granada in 2007. Next, she studied a Master´s Degree in Agrarian Biology and Aquaculture at the University of Granada, which she finished in 2008. Parallel she intervened in a study in fish larvae Acipenser Naccarii, specializing in techniques of oxidative stress. From 2008 to 2010, she worked at the University of Granada in different research projects related to oxidative stress. During 2011, she worked at the Consejo Superior de Invesigaciones Científicas (CSIC) on issues related to oxidative stress and the response to biotic and abiotic stress in plants. From 2012 to 2016, she did her doctorate in Intercellular Communication group at the University of Granada (Sapin), where she worked in a new model of Parkinson´s disease in the zebrafish. As a part of her predoctoral training, she past three months in the laboratory of Dr. David Rubinsztein (University of Cambridge) to learn techniques related to zebrafish. In 2016, she defended her doctoral thesis titled “Zebrafish as a model of Parkinson´s disease, evaluation of mitochondrial dysfunction and therapeutic capacity of melatonin” at the University of Granada, obtaining the maximal qualification. Her thesis deals with the evaluation of mitochondrial dysfunction in the parkinsonian zebrafish embryo and the evaluation of the therapeutic capabilities of melatonin. Her work has led to the discovery of new molecular targets of the melatonin in the Parkinson´s disease, with great interest in clinical research for this disease. In 2017 she got a one-year postdoctoral grant to evaluating a chronic parkinsonian model and the molecular mechanisms by which melatonin carries out its neuroprotective functions.
After, she worked as a postdoc in the Laboratory of Audiomotor Disorders at the Institute of Neuroscience of Castilla y León (University of Salamanca), in the group leaded for the Dr. López. Her research was focused on the study of the genetic variants and differential gene expression in an audiogenic epilepsy model. Currently, she is working at University of Granada, in the Mito Lab, which is led by the Dr. L. López. Her research is focused on the study of therapeutic potential of different drugs in models deficient in CoQ. Her research adopts a multidisciplinary viewpoint, integrating data from genomics, transciptomic, proteomic, physiology and cell biology.