Brooke Tata The International Congress of Neuroendocrinology 2014

Brooke Tata

Brooke Tata earned her Bachelor of Science degree as Summa cum Laude at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA in 2010. She worked for all years of her undergraduate career in Dr. Pei-San Tsai’s Reproductive Neuroendocrinology laboratory, already publishing a first author paper where she was the first to discover that fibroblast growth factors are not just important for birth of GnRH neurons but also for the postnatal regulation of the Kisspeptin neuroendocrine system. Brooke Tata then internationally bridged her neuroendocrine research by receiving her Masters of Science in Genetics at University of Paris Diderot-Paris 7 second in her class (top 10%) in 2012. Brooke joined the docotoral program at Paris Sorbonne Cité University in 2012 working in the laboratory of Genetics and Physiology of Pubertal Onset of Nicolas de Roux at Hopital Robert Debré in Paris, France to study a synaptic protein and its role/mechanism in GnRH release and fertility. In fact, she was selected as first rank to receive the Ile de France doctoral school research scholarship to carry out her PhD studies. Brooke has also received numerous other awards and honors including the Howard Hughes Medical School research (biological sciences) award, The Endocrine Society Summer Research Fellowship, Endocrine Society Early Career Award and Featured Poster award, Travel Grant for the ICN Conference from the "Societe de Neuroendocrinologie", and awards from the National Science Foundation. She is a part of the COST GnRH network in Europe where she has received travel and poster awards in both Prato, Italy and Berlin, Germany to present her current PhD research. She has also presented her work at international conferences including the Society of Neuroscience and The Endocrine Society receiving a featured poster award and certificate as an outstanding young scientist in endocrinology. While pursuing her PhD, Brooke has discovered a potential novel mechanism of a new protein that could be involved in the post-natal maintenance of GnRH neurons through the disruption synaptic activity and rewiring of neuroendocrine circuits during puberty. Her goal is to challenge her knowledge and learn more challenging techniques to prove this for her PhD thesis and continue in the field of neuroendocrinology for her post-doctoral studies, focusing on GnRH neuroendocrine circuits. Further, she has also mentored three students including one Masters student. She was also elected to be one of three PhD members of the doctoral school board committee for the Jury of choosing upcoming doctoral students. Overall, Brooke has published two major papers, being first author on one and is currently underway in publishing her next first author manuscript on the role of Dmxl2 on GnRH activity. Her focus and main goals for her studies and future career is to focus on hypothalamic neuronal networks regulating reproduction with a specific interest in the neuroendocrine system and neuronal networks which regulate GnRH neurons, their pulsatility, morphology and the mechanisms underlying their activation during pubertal onset. Her major impetus in life is to obtain her own laboratory and academically conduct research in neuroendocrinology on an international level.

Abstracts this author is presenting: