Postdoctoral Fellow
Supervisor
Dr. Chris West
Current Program
Postdoctoral FellowBiography
Dr. Tara Fortino is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Christopher West’s lab, affiliated with the department of Cellular & Physiological Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC and Co-mentored by Dr. Wolfram Tetzlaff at the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD).
Current Research
Tara’s research is dedicated to restoring connectivity lost due to spinal cord injury through innovative transplantation techniques aimed at improving sympathetic function. Dr. Fortino’s current work utilizes human induced pluripotent stem cell technology to differentiate cells into specific, excitatory, interneurons for transplantation. This approach aims to restore descending input to sympathetic preganglionic neurons after thoracic spinal cord injury, thereby improving cardiovascular function.
Contact
tara.fortino@ubc.ca