Affiliation: University of California, Davis

Dr. Lillian Cruz-Orengo laboratory focuses on neuroimmune interactions at the blood-brain barrier (BBB), with the overarching aim of understanding the mechanisms underlying the neuropathophysiology of multiple sclerosis, a sex-biased autoimmune and neurodegenerative disorder. Her laboratory studies the synergism of the neuro-immune systems, sexual dimorphism, and environmental exposure influence BBB function. Dr. Cruz-Orengo earned her PhD in Physiology & Neuroscience in the Department Physiology & Biophysics at the University of Puerto Rico-Medial Sciences Campus. She performed two postdoctoral training periods at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) in Saint Louis, at WUSM Department of Anesthesiology & Psychiatry-Pain Center followed by her training in Neuroimmunology with Dr. Robyn Klein, WUSM Department of Internal Medicine-Division of Infectious Diseases. She has more than 15 years of in-depth training in rodent models of neurological disorders, including trauma, chronic pain, autoimmunity, neuroinflammation, and neurodegeneration. As a graduate student, she developed a method for the assessment of chronic pain and depression-like behavior in rats with spinal injury. As a postdoctoral trainee, she worked in the first use of in vivo sodium fluorescein permeability assay to assess BBB disruption during experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and viral encephalitis and developed an artificial human BBB to assess lymphocyte migration. More recently her laboratory developed a novel method for CNS region-specific microvessels isolation applicable to the five classes of vertebrates and suitable for multiple downstream applications. Currently, Dr. Cruz-Orengo is expanding into studying the clinical implications of immune-mediated BBB dysfunction in companion animal health and its translational application to human neuropathology.