Abeer Dagra, MD Candidate c/o 2024
Abeer is a post-baccalaureate research assistant who joined the team in May 2019 after graduating as a Magna Cum Laude with her Bachelors in Science from UF.
Her research interests include studying mechanisms of neuro-degeneration and cellular signalling pathways to better understand disease development and progression. At the lab, she is working towards identifying mechanisms of synaptic and cell-level dysfunction, and dysregulation of neurotransmission in the midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons in response to alpha-synuclein over-expression. Pathologic alpha-synuclein accumulation and deposits are observed in neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). However, the underlying mechanism and functional consequences of alpha-synuclein accumulation on dopamine transmission, cell dysfunction and subsequent cell loss are not well understood. Elucidating these mechanisms will allow determination of progression of pathology and has the potential for the identification of therapeutic targets.
Her future goal is to pursue MD/PhD and make her contributions towards advancing science and serving the humanity as a physician scientist.