Gabriela Degro Baez

My name is Gabriela and I am from Puerto Rico. I am a recent graduate of the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, Recinto de Ponce  where I received my bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences. My interest is aimed at acquiring more knowledge and experience in research, specifically in the clinical field. For me, clinical research is what really makes the difference when we talk about saving lives or improving a person’s lifestyle. There are increasingly emerging more diseases and complications for the human being and I would like to be someone who makes a difference and help others, improving lives by developing preventive approaches and new treatments for the people and specially providing care to the underrepresented groups. My goal after finishing the OGR program is to become an MD / Phd.

Research Area

I work in the Center for Reproductive Health Sciences in Dr. Katherine Fuh’s research laboratory, focusing on Gynecology Oncology.  Dr. Fuh’s lab is currently studying metastasis in ovarian and uterine serous cancer. I am working with the lab looking at the effects of trastuzumab in combination with AVB-S500 on tumor cell invasion, cell proliferation, and metastasis in uterine serous cancer. Dr. Fuh’s lab has shown that tumor cells with high AXL expression, a receptor tyrosine kinase, are involved in increased cell invasion and metastasis. Another major aspect of working in Dr. Fuh’s lab is the in-vivo animal models for translational medicine.  The planned experiments will be comparing the effects of tumor metastasis in-vivo (weight, volume, number of tumor nodules) after treatment with Olaparib, AVB-S500, or combination.