Vanesa R. Hyde

Motivated by the devastating progression of Alzheimer’s disease and its lack of viable treatment options, Vanesa began her educational journey in neuroscience. Her published undergraduate research explored the gut-brain axis model noting both an altered gut microbiome composition and immune activation in a Drosophila model of human tauopathy (Rydbom et al, 2021). Realizing that neuroscience and psychology are integral components of understanding the human experience, Vanesa shifted her focus to a [neuro]psychology-geared trajectory. She graduated in 2021 from Washington & Jefferson College with a B.A. in psychology and English. 

Vanesa previously led projects focused on understanding neurodegenerative disease causality and mechanism:

(1) Using primarily expansion microscopy and cell culture modeling, her work demonstrated that Herpes Simplex Virus 1 (HSV-1) triggers tau phosphorylation via the cGAS-STING pathway in the brain.

(2) Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) project focused on understanding the factors contributing to disease development while coinciding with concussion events.

Currently, Vanesa is pursuing her PhD in neuroscience at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the future, Vanesa hopes that her research will be able to aid translational medicine advancements.

Published work: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(24)01460-8

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanesa-hyde-1574a3200/