Dr. Vanessa Sepúlveda from UPR-Medical Sciences Campus
Supplement Titled:
Association of Gut Microbiota with Alzheimer Disease in Puerto Ricans
Co-PI: Dr. Filipa Godoy
I am a Board-certified Internal Medicine and Geriatrics Physician, Professor of the School of Medicine of the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico (MSC UPR). I supervise and mentor medicine students, IM residents and Geriatrics fellows on their training, medical education and research projects. Currently I am the consultant in Geriatrics for the Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program, a grant awarded by HRSA to the Graduate School of Public Health. In 2019, I served on the organization and scientific committee for the 2019 Latinos and Alzheimer Disease Symposium, sponsored by the Alzheimer Association of the United States.
My career has been focused on the care and study of the elderly and their most common syndromes. I work directly with Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers and as a result of my daily experience, I developed for the first time in Puerto Rico a campaign called “Un Café por el Alzheimer”: An Innovative Awareness Approach in Puerto Rico”, which has not been interrupted since its inception in 2014. Since 2018, I have led studies in Alzheimer’s Disease in Puerto Ricans that focus on identifying insulin resistance and CSF biomarkers in Puerto Ricans with MI and Early Alzheimer’s disease and the associations between gut microbiota, MCI and Alzheimer’s disease in this same population. In Puerto Rico, Alzheimer’s is understudied, research is scarce, and more studies are needed that target our population’s needs.
