Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston
Dr. Lierni Ugartemendia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at UTHealth Houston. Her current work focuses on the development of non-invasive, extracellular vesicle-based biomarkers for the detection and characterization of maternal and fetal brain function. In particular, she investigates how maternal exposures (such as cannabis or SSRI use), obesity, prenatal stress, and maternal infections like cytomegalovirus impact fetal brain development. She earned her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology, Biomedicine and Biotechnology at University of Extremadura in 2021, where she applied a tryptophan-based nutrigenetic approach to study mood and social cognition. Her previous work at the Center for Metabolic and Degenerative Diseases at UTHealth Houston examined dynamic changes in stress circuits during the postpartum period and their impact on offspring development using rodent models. She is passionate about bridging nutrition, neuroscience, and molecular biology to improve maternal-fetal health outcomes.