Marissa A. Scavuzzo, PhD | Source | HHMI Hanna H. Gray Fellow, Tesar Lab, School of Medicine at Case Western Rese...

I am currently an HHMI Hanna H. Gray Fellow studying how these diverse and highly dynamic cells contribute to gastrointestinal health and disease and I am co-founder and Scientific Director of the non-profit Rise Up: Northeast Ohio (riseupnortheastohio.org).

Originally from Houston, TX, I received my undergraduate degrees in Neuroscience and Biology at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, OH. There I worked with Dr. Andrew Mickley to gain insight into memory formation and extinction. I completed my thesis research in the same lab studying how signaling pathways in different brain regions contribute to the formation of autistic-like behaviors in rats. After this I moved back to Houston where I worked as a research technician with Dr. Thomas Cooper at Baylor College of Medicine to investigate how coordinated RNA alternative splicing contributes to muscle development, recovery, and disease in cell culture and mouse models. I then received my PhD in Developmental Biology from Baylor College of Medicine where I worked with Dr. Malgorzata Borowiak to better understand the molecular, cellular, and temporal mechanisms regulating endocrine development and physiology in mice and human stem cell based models. After completing my PhD, I moved back to Cleveland to work with Dr. Paul Tesar. In this position I have generated a combination of novel technologies to lay the foundation for a new research program in enteric glial cell biology. I aim to open the Scavuzzo lab in 2024/2025.