Dr. Maria Paula Avalos Post Doctoral Fellow

Maria Paula Avalos is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHU SOM). After obtaining her graduate degree as a biochemist in the School of Chemical Sciences at the National University of Cordoba (FCQ, UNC), Argentina, she obtained a Postgraduate Fellowship from the National Council of Scientific Research – Argentina (CONICET) to pursue her PhD in the field of neuroscience, primarily neuroimmune pharmacology, in the Department of Pharmacology at FCQ, UNC, Argentina, under the mentorship of Dr. Liliana Cancela. Her PhD dissertation was focused on the neuroimmune modulation of glutamatergic mechanisms in the Nucleus Accumbens core mediating chronic stress-induced vulnerability to developing substance use disorders. She obtained her PhD degree in 2021 and was an Assistant Professor in Pharmacology and Toxicology until 2023 at the same University. In 2023, she joined the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at JHU SOM, for her postdoctoral training under the mentorship of Dr. Sujatha Kannan. Her key areas of interest are neuroinflammation, nanomedicine and mental health disorders. Currently, her research is focused on the efficacy studies of novel dendrimer conjugates in preclinical models of PTSD, refractory depression and pain-related disorders, as well as testing the abuse potential of the dendrimer conjugates with therapeutic potential.