Education
Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, San Diego, Professor Roger Y. Tsien (2008 Nobel Laureate)
Ph.D., California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Professor Dennis A. Dougherty,2009
B.S., California Institute of Technlogy (Caltech), 2002
Clinical / Research Interests
Cancer and Human Disease Imaging
Drug Delivery
Biography

Throughout my doctoral and post-doctoral training, I have pursued research in biological and chemical tool development to elucidate biology. In my doctoral work at Caltech with Dennis A. Dougherty and Henry A. Lester, I developed orthogonal suppressor tRNAs to site-specifically incorporate multiple unnatural amino acids in vivo. I received broad training in chemical biology, biochemistry, and neurobiology. My postdoctoral work at UCSD with Roger Y. Tsien enhanced my expertise to include evolving and characterizing fluorescent proteins, fluorescence imaging, cell culture, and animal imaging. I enjoy collaborating to gain knowledge in diverse fields and to ensure my tools are utilized. The newly evolved fluorescent protein is biophysically the brightest far-red fluorescent protein created, so far, and comparable to jellyfish derived fluorescent proteins. Richard Ting (Weill Cornell Medicine) and I developed dual-modality imaging (near-infrared fluorescence and positron emission tomography) agents to image cancer, strokes, and cerebrospinal fluid in living mice, which will be tested in humans. Visit the Rodriguez Lab website.