Affiliation: Stoelting Co

Dr. Sylvia Ortega-Martinez is a scientific manager at Stoelting Co. in the Neuroscience and ANY-maze Divisions. She has developed her scientific career working in top academic institutions around the world, such as the Instituto Cajal (Spain), Washington University (US), Oxford University (UK), Turku Centre of Biotechnology (Finland) and the University of Chicago (US), among others. Her work was focused on the role of adult hippocampal neurogenesis, as a key mechanism in neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. She has established that the Neural Stem Cells responsible for Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis are generated mainly in the postnatal day 6 (t.ly/3VPOw). This is a crucial discovery in the field, as it explained the critical periods in postnatal stress that posteriorly have consequences in adult life. Her second main achievement was to establish the role of the kinase JNK1 in neurogenesis and its implications in psychiatric disorders, such as stress, depression or anxiety. This discovery was published in 2017 (t.ly/v9qn7). Finally, with her work at The University of Chicago, she has elucidated that microglia plays a crucial role in adult hippocampal neurogenesis, specifically in Alzheimer’s disease conditions (t.ly/zP8DP). Currently, she provides scientific and technical support and gives feedback and assistance in product improvement and development. Dr. Ortega-Martinez also implements courses and workshops in the Neuroscience field, being scientific divulgation one of her passions.