LEAD MOTIVATOR

  VICTORIA ABRAIRA, PhD

Victoria received her undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Southern California and her graduate degree in Neuroscience from Harvard University. As a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins/Harvard Medical School she set out to understand the cellular and synaptic substrates underlying innocuous touch perception by elucidating the functional organization of sensory neurons in mouse hairy skin and uncovering the neural codes of touch perception in the spinal cord dorsal horn. 

TECHNICAL TEAM

YURDIANA

Yurdiana Hernandez - an animal genotyping expert and an MD - serves as our lab manager.   Wielding unmatched low genotyping error rates and extensive animal protocol prowess, she provides the framework of our lab's experimentation: proper animal husbandry and identification for hundreds of animals weekly. Moreover, Yurdiana manages lab documentation and compliance - keeping our mice and researchers in tip top shape.

LAILA

Laila Brahmia handles our animal colony with both care and diligence - also a consultant with computer science affairs. As our key mouseroom specialist, she carries out the fundamental daily tasks needed to keep the numerous ongoing experiments afloat. 

SEAN

Sean O'Leary is a trained animal specialist. An integral member of not only Abraira Lab, but the W. M. Center for Collaborative Neuroscience, Sean also manages our animal surgery room, lab inventory, orders, and animal lines needed to keep experiments running. 

AN ENTIRE CENTER

Our lab is immersed in the W. M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience, a state-of-the-art research center fully equipped and staffed toward cutting-edge spinal cord circuit research.