The Molecular Pathology laboratory in Trieste, Italy, has been pursuing an ambitious project led by Dr. Diana Eva Bedolla Orozco, recipient of a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship funded by the European Union.
Embarking upon an academic journey that traversed continents and disciplines, Dr. Bedolla set out to create new models that can help screen for the neurological disease known as Fronto Temporal Dementia (FTD). A graduate in physics from the University of Morelos, Mexico, and PhD in Neuroscience from the International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA), Dr. Bedolla formulated a project to explore frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and other neurodegenerative diseases through vibrational spectroscopy: a technique used to characterise and identify compounds by revealing information about their composition, bonding, and other properties. The project was entitled #IR4FTD.
Collaborating with the ICGEB in Trieste and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, Dr. Bedolla set out to unravel novel insights into these debilitating conditions. She searches for spectral fingerprints in biofluids, aiming to develop a screening tool to decrease the costs of current diagnosis.
Dr. Bedolla confirms “the foundations to start scanning people affected by neurodegenerative diseases have been laid to start building models on different diseases, and two joint scientific publications are in progress”. An expert in infrared spectroscopy, Dr. Bedolla is currently working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, USA, to advance this research through synchrotron light source capabilities for a broad scientific community.
“Some of the methodologies for FTD will also be used with ALS and will lead to new models that can help with the screening of the disease”. To date, her experience has included collaboration with numerous science institutes in Trieste, Italy (the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, ICTP, the International School of Advanced Studies, SISSA, Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, and Area Science Park), and she continues to aspire to develop point-of-care diagnostics and shape the forefront of neuroscientific research.
Her work continues at the Berkeley Lab, California, USA, where she is now a Research Scientist in the Photon Science Group working on the spectromicroscopy program operating microscopy beamlines at the Advanced Light Source.
