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

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

Update on Disease-Specific Biomarkers in Transthyretin Cardiac Amyloidosis.

Hood CJ, Hendren NS, Pedretti R, Roth LR, Saelices L, Grodin JL, Curr Heart Fail Rep 2022 Aug

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

Nguyen BA, Afrin S, Singh V, Ahmed Y, Pedretti R, Fernandez-Ramirez M, Benson MD, Sawaya RM, Cao Q, Boyer D, Pope A, Wydorski PM, Chhapra F, Eisenberg DS, Saelices L bioRxiv 2022 496949 2022.06.21

Cryo-EM structures of hIAPP fibrils seeded by patient-extracted fibrils reveal new polymorphs and conserved fibril cores.

Cao Q, Boyer DR, Sawaya MR, Abskharon R, Saelices L, Nguyen BA, Lu J, Murray KA, Kandeel F, Eisenberg DS, Nat Struct Mol Biol 2021 Sep 28 9 724-730

Inhibition of amyloid formation of the Nucleoprotein of SARS-CoV-2.

Tayeb-Fligelman E, Cheng X, Tai C, Bowler JT, Griner S, Sawaya MR, Seidler PM, Jiang YX, Lu J, Rosenberg GM, Salwinski L, Abskharon R, Zee CT, Hou K, Li Y, Boyer DR, Murray KA, Falcon G, Anderson DH, Cascio D, Saelices L, Damoiseaux R, Guo F, Eisenberg DS, bioRxiv 2021 Mar

The inhibition of cellular toxicity of amyloid-beta by dissociated transthyretin.

Cao Q, Anderson DH, Liang WY, Chou JA, Saelices L, J. Biol. Chem. 2020 Aug

A pair of peptides inhibits seeding of the hormone transporter transthyretin into amyloid fibrils.

Saelices L, Nguyen BA, Chung K, Wang Y, Ortega A, Lee JH, Coelho T, Bijzet J, Benson MD, Eisenberg DS J. Biol. Chem. 2019 Feb

Assessment of the effects of transthyretin peptide inhibitors in Drosophila models of neuropathic ATTR.

Saelices L, Pokrzywa M, Pawelek K, Eisenberg DS, Neurobiol. Dis. 2018 12 120 118-125

Amyloid seeding of transthyretin by ex vivo cardiac fibrils and its inhibition.

Saelices L, Chung K, Lee JH, Cohn W, Whitelegge JP, Benson MD, Eisenberg DS, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2018 07 115 29 E6741-E6750

 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)