Current Trainees
Somayyeh Nasiripour, PhD
Mentor: Jean Bopassa, PhD
Training Period: Feb 2024 – Present
Research: Inhibition of Adenine Production in Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury
Overview: Somayyeh earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Azad University of Medical Sciences in 2006 and completed a Ph.D. in Clinical Pharmacy at Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2013. Her doctoral research focused on the therapeutic effects of melatonin and the role of anticoagulant therapy in inflammatory biomarkers among patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction, resulting in peer-reviewed publications in Pathophysiology in 2010, and in the Iranian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research in 2014.
From 2014 to 2023, she served as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at Iran University of Medical Sciences, where she taught medical students and conducted clinical research, including cardiology-focused clinical trials. Following her relocation to San Antonio, Somayyeh joined Dr. Bopassa’s laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow, where she is further developing her clinical and translational research expertise in cardiovascular disease.
Sanaz Sajadi, PhD
Mentor: Martin Paukert, PhD
Training Period: Jan 2025 – Present
Overview: Sanaz earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio under the mentorship of Dr. Martin Paukert. She has developed expertise in two-photon Ca²⁺ imaging, transgenic and chemogenetic neuronal manipulation, and behavioral assays to investigate neural circuit mechanisms underlying neuromodulation and learning.
Her research focuses on norepinephrine signaling in cerebellar Bergmann glia and its role in associative learning. Because the adrenergic receptors mediating this signaling are also expressed in vascular smooth muscle cells, her work provides a foundation for investigating connections between glial function, cognitive processes, and cardiovascular regulation.
Danielle Santana Coelho, PhD
Mentor: Jason O’Connor, PhD
Training Period: July 2025 – Present
Overview: Danielle earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where her doctoral research established expertise in the kynurenine pathway and its role in neurodevelopmental disorders. As a postdoctoral researcher, she has expanded this work to investigate related neurological disorders, including stroke, epilepsy, and autism spectrum disorder.
Through T32 support, Dr. Santana Coelho is advancing her research training toward an independent translational research program focused on the kynurenine pathway in stroke. Her T32 project examines how neuroactive metabolites, including kynurenine and kynurenic acid, influence pathological and reparative processes following cerebral ischemia, with a particular focus on neurogenesis and functional recovery. This training builds on her prior expertise while providing experience in translational approaches to stroke recovery and therapeutic target development.
Lacey Sell, PhD
Mentor: Manzoor Bhat, PhD, MS
Training Period: July 2025 – Present
Overview: Lacey earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience through the Integrated Biomedical Sciences program at UT Health San Antonio in 2025. Her doctoral research focused on characterizing transgenic mouse models carrying novel human CNTNAP1 mutations associated with severe neurological disorders, including hypomyelination, impaired motor coordination, and early infant mortality. Building on this foundational training, her current research focuses on AAV-mediated gene therapy strategies to restore CNTNAP1 function in vivo.
Through her T32 training, Lacey is expanding her expertise in translational gene therapy while addressing critical challenges in therapeutic delivery to the central and peripheral nervous systems. Her work examines how vascular barriers, including the blood-brain and blood-nerve barriers, influence AAV biodistribution, therapeutic efficacy, and safety, while also addressing off-target delivery to highly vascularized organs. This training integrates her expertise in neurological disease models and gene therapy with emerging skills in vascular biology and therapeutic development.
Ana Quintero, PhD
Mentor: Kumar Sharma, PhD
Training Period: Nov 2025 – Present
Overview: Ana earned her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Baylor University, where her doctoral research focused on developing mass spectrometry-based methods to characterize carbohydrate structure and dynamics. Her work used in-electrospray ionization hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (in-ESI HDX-MS) to distinguish and structurally characterize complex carbohydrate isomers, providing expertise in analytical methodology and biomolecular characterization.
As a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Sharma’s laboratory, Dr. Quintero is expanding her expertise into spatial metabolomics and translational kidney research. Her training focuses on identifying biomarkers relevant to kidney disease using complementary mass spectrometry approaches, including MALDI mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to analyze tissue and plasma samples. This progression integrates her strong analytical chemistry background with advanced metabolomics approaches for the study of human disease.