Luis Natividad

Assistant Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology

Bridge the understanding of brain protein biology and basic motivational, affective and cognitive processes that are dysregulated by addiction and disease.

Dr. Natividad received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at El Paso under the guidance of Dr. Laura O’Dell. He went on to his post-doctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute with Dr. Larry Parsons where he began to implement mass spectrometry analysis with in vivo methods to assay a wide-range of small molecule transmitters. His primary work elucidated the interaction between stress-priming and stress-constraining mechanisms in the central amygdala that give rise to negative affective symptoms (e.g., anxiety) during alcohol withdrawal. He then worked with Drs. Marisa Roberto and John Yates at Scripps to apply these models of dependence in a large-scale analysis of the brain proteome to explore the potential role of dysregulated kinase signaling in addiction.

The Natividad laboratory is interested in high-throughput analyses of the neuroproteome to gain insight on the mechanisms of drug and alcohol addiction. Current projects utilize mass spectrometry and in-vivo neuropharmacology to bridge the connection between small molecule/protein signaling in the brain and behavioral dysfunction.

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