Liliana Espinoza, graduate student in the Neuroscience discipline of the Integrated Biomedical Sciences program,  was awarded the 2019 Trainee Professional Development Award (TPDA) to attend the Society for Neuroscience conference this October!

In Dr. Carie Boychuk’s lab, she is mapping the parasympathetic neuronal circuitry that innervates the sinus node of the heart to determine their electrophysiological properties and investigate how these neuronal circuits are contributing to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease in the context of metabolic stressors, like obesity.

“There are very few labs in the world that are able to retrogradely label the neurons that innervate the heart and we are one of the few labs that can do that. Being able to know exactly which neurons are connected to the heart makes the physiological relevance of the experimental goals of my thesis project easily interpretable,” she said.

To read an article about Lily, read Lily Espinoza: Science Moves Medicine Forward.