Corina Rosales, PhD

Dr. Rosales’ doctoral training is in Pathology and Molecular Biology, earning her degree at the University of Texas-Houston.  Her graduate research studies involved engineering a mouse model for lipid metabolism and resulted in a first author paper showing that the cluster of differentiation-1d (CD1d) is a cell surface receptor for oxysterol-induced PPAR-gamma(?) activation. 

In her postdoctoral fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine she acquired expertise in lipoprotein isolation and analysis, lipid synthesis, enzymatic assays, in vivo methods, and chemical kinetics using fluorescence spectroscopy, radiolabeling, and turbidimetric kinetics.  Dr. Rosales’ current research studies are focused on a streptococcal protein, serum opacity factor (SOF), which catalyzes a novel reaction that targets plasma HDL. She was part of a team that showed that SOF destabilizes and selectively delipidates human HDL by a mechanism that yields an apo E-containing, cholesteryl ester-rich microemulsion (CERM), lipid-free (LF) apo AI and a phospholipid-rich “neo HDL”.

Dr. Rosales has continued to work on SOF uncovering the stabilizing role of apo AII in modulating the SOF reaction.   She has carried out experiments revealing the cardioprotective potential of SOF; she led the in vivo studies which showed that low dose SOF (4 µg) reduces plasma cholesterol in WT mice ~45% in three hours where it remains for 20 hours.  Using wild-type, apo E-null, and LDLR-null mice, she then showed that the reduction in plasma cholesterol was mediated by apo E, which directed the CERM to several apo E-dependent receptors, including LDLR.  Subsequently, her studies of SOF vs. HDL from apo AI-null mice further showed that HDL instability and apo AI lability are permitting factors in the SOF reaction.  

Future studies in her lab involve determining the role of SOF in the prevention and/or regression of atherosclerosis.  A recently funded clinical grant will also be examining HDL function in patients with high HDL profiles from the cardiology clinic.  Dr. Rosales is, also, pursuing studies in fertility after a novel discovery that SOF can reverse fertility in SRBI knockout mice, which are a model of high plasma HDL.   

Dr. Rosales is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine and director of the Summer Undergraduate Research Internship program.  She enjoys mentoring and interacting with students and giving didactic lectures.