Dr. Violeta Durán-Laforet graduated from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2016 with a degree in Pharmacy. As an undergraduate, she collaborated with the Neurovascular Research Unit, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the School of Medicine at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. After graduating, she formally joined the Neurovascular Research Unit as a PhD candidate under the supervision of Dr. Ignacio Lizasoain and Dr. María Ángeles Moro. During her Ph.D. studies, her research focused on the role of neutrophils in the physiopathology of stroke, studying the heterogeneity of the neutrophil population that infiltrates the brain after stroke. Also, she explored the role of the receptor TLR4 on neutrophil polarization and infiltration after ischemia. In 2019 and 2020, she was a visiting scientist at the Neuroprotection Research Lab, Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard Medical School. She received her Ph.D. in December 2020 and joined Dr. Schafer’s lab as a Postdoctoral Associate where she continues to investigate the role of immune cells in the context of brain disease, focusing on the role of senescent microglia in diverse neurodegenerative pathologies.
Dr. Dorothy P Schafer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. She received her Bachelor’s degree at Mount Holyoke College in 2001 and completed her PhD studies at the University of Connecticut in 2008. She began her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Beth Stevens at Boston Children’s Hospital. She has a longstanding interest in understanding how neuron–glia interactions regulate nervous system development and determining how these interactions become disrupted in disease.
Dr. Robyn S Klein is the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Neurovirology & Neuroimmunology, Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, and Researcher in the Western Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Western Ontario Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. She received her Bachelor’s degree at Columbia University in 1985 and her Master’s degree at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1990. She completed her PhD studies in Neuroscience and an MD at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1993. She is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Distinguished Advisory Board member of the Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN), and the Rocket Science Health, Viral Neuro Exploration (VINEx) Initiative in Victoria, B.C., and Montreal, Quebec. She is also an internationally renowned neuroimmunologist who oversees a basic and translational science research program focused on the pathogenesis of neuroinfectious diseases of the central nervous system (CNS).
