Lorena Saelices Gomez, Ph.D.

Download Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Saelices earned her B.S. in biology and her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Seville, where her training focused on molecular biology and structural biology. She performed postdoctoral research at ETH Zürich and UCLA, and was an Assistant and Associate Project Scientist at UCLA, where she focused on protein aggregation to develop new potential therapeutic strategies for transthyretin amyloidosis and Alzheimer's disease.

She joined the UTSW faculty in 2020. Her lab applies cryo-electron microscopy to obtain atomic information of amyloid structures, which is later used to design tools for the clinic. The lab focuses mainly on transthyretin amyloidosis and Alzheimer’s disease.

Undergraduate

University of Seville - Spain (2005), Biology

Graduate School

University of Seville - Spain (2007), Biochemistry

Graduate School

University of Seville - Spain (2010), Biochemistry

• Amyloid deposition
• Cardiac amyloidosis
• Cryo-electron microscopy
• Crystallography
• Diagnostics
• Disease biology
• Rational and computational design
• Transthyretin amyloidosis

Featured Publications

Cryo-EM confirms a common fibril fold in the heart of four patients with ATTRwt amyloidosis.

Nguyen BA, Singh V, Afrin S, Singh P, Pekala M, Ahmed Y, Pedretti R, Canepa J, Lemoff A, Kluve-Beckerman B, Wydorski P, Chhapra F, Saelices L, bioRxiv 2024 Mar

Circulating transthyretin and retinol binding protein 4 levels among middle-age V122I TTR carriers in the general population.

Hendren NS, De Lemos JA, Berry JD, Kozlitina J, Saelices L, Ji AX, Shao Z, Liu CF, Garg S, Farr MA, Drazner MH, Tang WHW, Grodin JL, Amyloid 2024 Mar 1-8

Author Correction: O-GlcNAc forces an α-synuclein amyloid strain with notably diminished seeding and pathology.

Balana AT, Mahul-Mellier AL, Nguyen BA, Horvath M, Javed A, Hard ER, Jasiqi Y, Singh P, Afrin S, Pedretti R, Singh V, Lee VM, Luk KC, Saelices L, Lashuel HA, Pratt MR, Nat Chem Biol 2024 Feb

O-GlcNAc forces an α-synuclein amyloid strain with notably diminished seeding and pathology.

Balana AT, Mahul-Mellier AL, Nguyen BA, Horvath M, Javed A, Hard ER, Jasiqi Y, Singh P, Afrin S, Pedretti R, Singh V, Lee VM, Luk KC, Saelices L, Lashuel HA, Pratt MR, Nat Chem Biol 2024 Feb

Structural polymorphism of amyloid fibrils in ATTR amyloidosis revealed by cryo-electron microscopy.

Nguyen BA, Singh V, Afrin S, Yakubovska A, Wang L, Ahmed Y, Pedretti R, Fernandez-Ramirez MDC, Singh P, Pekala M, Cabrera Hernandez LO, Kumar S, Lemoff A, Gonzalez-Prieto R, Sawaya MR, Eisenberg DS, Benson MD, Saelices L, Nat Commun 2024 Jan 15 1 581

Conformational inhibitors of protein aggregation.

Fernández Ramírez MDC, Afrin S, Saelices L, Curr Opin Struct Biol 2023 Dec 83 102700

Disease-associated patterns of acetylation stabilize tau fibril formation.

Li L, Nguyen BA, Mullapudi V, Li Y, Saelices L, Joachimiak LA, Structure 2023 Jun

Low complexity domains of the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2 form amyloid fibrils.

Tayeb-Fligelman E, Bowler JT, Tai CE, Sawaya MR, Jiang YX, Garcia G, Griner SL, Cheng X, Salwinski L, Lutter L, Seidler PM, Lu J, Rosenberg GM, Hou K, Abskharon R, Pan H, Zee CT, Boyer DR, Li Y, Anderson DH, Murray KA, Falcon G, Cascio D, Saelices L, Damoiseaux R, Arumugaswami V, Guo F, Eisenberg DS, Nat Commun 2023 Apr 14 1 2379

O-GlcNAc modification forces the formation of an α-Synuclein amyloid-strain with notably diminished seeding activity and pathology.

Balana AT, Mahul-Mellier AL, Nguyen BA, Horvath M, Javed A, Hard ER, Jasiqi Y, Singh P, Afrin S, Pedretti R, Singh V, Lee VM, Luk KC, Saelices L, Lashuel HA, Pratt MR, bioRxiv 2023 Mar

Disease-associated patterns of acetylation stabilize tau fibril formation.

Li L, Nguyen B, Mullapudi V, Saelices L, Joachimiak LA, bioRxiv 2023 Jan

 Featured Books

Aproximación molecular al estudio del ciclo del nitrógeno en la biosfera y sus repercusiones agronómicas y medioambientales. In Avances en el metabolismo del nitrógeno

Saelices L, Galmozzi CV, Florencio FJ, Muro-Pastor MI (2011). Córdoba, Servicio de Publicaciones de la Univ. de Córdoba

• Welch Foundation Research Grant
  (2022-2025)
• Distinguished Researcher Award, UTSW President's Research Council
  (2021)
• DP2 New Innovator Award. NIH-NHLBI
  (2021)
• Izasa Scientifica Award for Best Plenary Talk. CajalXmas Meeting
  (2021)
• FASEB NextGen Award
  FASEB Protein Aggregation Conference (2019)
• The Company of Biologists Small Meeting Grant
  FASEB Next Generation Seminar (2019)
• UCLA-DOE Scientific Productivity Award
  (2019)
• International Society of Amyloidosis Presidential Travel Award
  (2018)
• UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute Core Voucher Award
  (2018)
• David Seldin, MD, PhD Memorial Research Grant
  The Amyloidosis Foundation (2017-2018)
• Amyloidosis Foundation Research Grant
  (2016)
• Poster Presentation Prize
  ISA International Symposium on Amyloidosis (2016)
• Presidential Travel Award
  International Society of Amyloidosis (2016)
• The Company of Biologists Small Meeting Grant
  Gordon Research Seminar on Neurobiology of Brain Disorders (2016)
• Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship
  (2012-2015)
• Training Fellowship (UCLA)
  Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Spain (2009)
• Training Research Fellowship (Institute for Biomedicine, Valencia)
  Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Spain (2009)
• Pre-doctoral Fellowship
  Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Spain (2006)
• Undergraduate Research Training Fellowship
  Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Spain (2004)
• Undergraduate Studies Scholarship
  Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Spain (2001-2005)

• Center for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases (2020)
• Department of Biophysics (2020)