Balboa Castillo Elisa, PhD

Personal resume

Dr. Elisa Balboa completed her undergraduate studies in biochemistry at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, where she focused her research on lysosomal diseases, with special attention to Niemann-Pick type C disease (NPC). Subsequently, she completed her Ph.D. in medical sciences at the Faculty of Medicine of the same university, focusing on the pathophysiology of NPC. Her research addressed aspects such as mitochondrial dysfunction, cholesterol homeostasis, and the effects of oxidative stress in cellular and animal models of the disease.

During her first postdoctoral fellowship, funded by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID), Dr. Balboa investigated muscle physiology and the pathogenesis of muscle atrophy associated with sepsis damage and prolonged glucocorticoid treatment. In her second postdoctoral fellowship, she explored the role of the transcription factor EB (TFEB) and its implications in metabolic diseases, autophagy, and other cellular processes.

In 2023, Dr. Balboa obtained funding through a three-year Fondecyt initiation project as principal investigator. This project aims to expand her research line to identify the metabolic pathways affected in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), collaborating with clinical groups from the Department of Gastroenterology at PUC and the Clinical Hospital of the University of Chile. Currently, Dr. Balboa is conducting a research internship at UMCG (University Medical Center Groningen), with the aim of deepening her understanding of a model for obtaining liver organoids from patient biopsies to study the molecular pathways involved in NAFLD pathophysiology.