Victoria Fernandez, PhD
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry
Dr. Fernandez has broad expertise and extensive experience in the field of genetics that started with her study of population genetics and phylogenetic analyses in non-model organisms. She now investigates the genetics of neurodegenerative diseases in humans.
As a postdoctoral researcher, she dove into the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by analyzing whole-exome sequence data from early onset AD (EOAD) individuals as well as families highly affected by the disease, either late onset AD (LOAD) or autosomal dominant AD (ADAD) families. Now, as an assistant professor she investigates -omic technologies to identify common, altered pathways among the three main AD etiologies (ADAD, EOAD, and LOAD). In addition, she uses iPSC and 3D models to interrogate novel findings and their potential as therapeutic targets in the context of Alzheimer’s disease.