Brenda Brizuela

Brenda Brizuela has over 20 years of experience in the field of molecular biology. In 1987, Brizuela graduated from East Carolina University with a BS in Biology. After several years of working in the field, she completed her PhD in Genetics at George Washington University in 1996. Brenda Brizuela then received four years of postdoctoral training in Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine.

While still pursuing her undergraduate degree, Brenda Brizuela began her professional career as an Intern at the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) Laboratory of Developmental Neurobiology. After graduation, she worked as a Biologist at the NICHD Laboratory of Molecular Genetics from 1987 to 1996. During this time, Brizuela developed skills in various techniques involving molecular biology, mutagenesis, phenotypic analysis, and classical genetic manipulations.

In 1996, Brenda Brizuela began her postdoctoral training, working at the same time as a Research Associate at UCLA. There, she developed additional skills in library screening, reverse transcription polymerase chain reactions, in vitro fertilization, and microinjection.

After leaving UCLA, Brizuela joined the faculty of North Carolina State University as an Assistant Professor. In that role, she taught classes in biology, chaired graduate student committees, and acted as a student advisor. She also worked as Principal Investigator of a small laboratory at the university, overseeing daily operations, directing staff, managing the budget, and writing grants. Under Brizuela's leadership, the lab isolated nine members of the claudin gene family from Xenopus and characterized the expression patterns in the embryo. She also collaborated to do related functional studies in mouse, chick, and fish.

Brenda Brizuela has contributed to her field through the publication of articles in professional journals, including the Anatomical Record, the American Journal of Physiology, the International Journal of Developmental Biology, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Brizuela also has presented at the national meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology, the American Society for Cell Biology, at the Forsyth Institute/Harvard Medical School seminar series, and at other conferences.