Miriam Paz Barba
Miriam Paz Barba is a PhD student who joined the islet group in September 2018. In 2012 she finished her BSC in Biochemistry at Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. Then she became interested in metabolic diseases, which led to starting her Master studies in Biomedicine, specializing in Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes. She performed her Master Internship studies abroad, in Karolinska Institutet. Her thesis focused on the optimization of site-directed mutagenesis to map ligand binding sites of Frizzled receptors, important for Wnt pathway activation.
Thereafter, her interests in Diabetes led her to pursue a PhD in the Islet lab, at the LUMC, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Eelco de Koning and Dr. Françoise Carlotti. Her PhD project focuses on studying the modulation of beta-cell and pancreatic islet metabolism. She is using immunomodulators and regulators of mitochondrial function as a way to prevent insulin dysfunction and beta-cell death, focusing on the signaling pathways and molecular mechanisms that trigger beta-cell demise, and eventually Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes.
