20th Annual Mariann Blum Memorial Lectureship in the Neurosciences

Dr. Lobo obtained her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles under the mentorship of Dr. X. William Yang. Her PhD work involved pioneering a new methodology to isolate the two main striatal projection neuron subtypes for gene expression profiling and uncovered many new genes enriched in these two neuron subtypes. Dr. Lobo's Postdoctoral studies were performed in the laboratory of Dr. Eric Nestler at University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, TX and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, NY. She built upon my scientific foundations in striatal circuit genetics and function to continue studying these circuits in drug addiction. Her work demonstrated divergent roles in the two ventral striatal (nucleus accumbens- NAc) projection neurons in the rewarding effects of cocaine and morphine. She joined the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University School of Medicine in 2011. Dr. Lobo's lab continues to study the two striatal projection neuron subtypes, as well as their downstream brain target regions, in psychiatric disease including drug abuse, mood disorders and stereotypy disorders.