Affiliation: VIB KU-Leuven

Prof. Da Cruz obtained her PhD in Cell Biology at the University of Geneva, Switzerland in 2005. After her post-doctoral training and stay as a research scientist on pathogenic mechanisms underlying ALS at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of California San Diego, USA, she became assistant professor in 2016 at the Ludwig Institute, San Diego. Since 2019, she has been a group leader and professor of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology in Neurodegenerative Disorders at the VIB‑KU Leuven Center for Brain and Disease Research and Department of Neurosciences at KU Leuven, Belgium. Her laboratory focuses on disease mechanisms and therapy development for ALS and frontotemporal dementia. In particular, her team investigates the contribution of local axonal translation and demixing/aggregation to muscle denervation and axonal loss in FUS and TDP-43-mediated diseases to ultimately identify new therapeutic targets for the treatment of neuromuscular disorders.