Dr. Victoria Abraira
Assistant Professor Rutgers University
Postdoctoral fellow Johns Hopkins/Harvard Medical School
PhD Harvard Medical School
When Dr. Victoria Abraira moved with her family to the United States from Argentina at the age of 12, she didn’t speak a word of English. She had been a good student back in her home country, so she thought school might be her ticket to fitting in in her new home of Los Angeles. Yet on her very first day of school, she was given a series of assessments that she understandably failed due to the language barrier. Her science teacher, however, reviewed her answers and proclaimed “3 out of 3, 100%”. Victoria was touched by this kind gesture and immediately registered this teacher as “cool” and someone she hoped to emulate one day. Years later, this initial dream of becoming a “cool” science teacher has come to fruition, albeit in a different form than she might have anticipated at the time. Victoria is now an Assistant Professor of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at Rutgers University, leading her own laboratory that investigates the organization and modulation of spinal cord circuits in development, injury, and disease.
Victoria still wanted to be a biology teacher when she started college at the University of Southern California, but she wasn’t exposed to neuroscience until her first introductory biology class. One section was taught by Dr. Albert Herrera, a Mexican-American neuroscience professor. Victoria was immediately drawn to his captivating research on the neuromuscular junction in frogs as well as their shared Hispanic heritage. When she approached him after class to essentially ask him, “how do I become you?”, he invited her to do research in his lab. This was her first research experience and she was wowed by it; she couldn’t believe that people actually got paid to come into lab and do experiments! Albert recognized her enthusiasm and talent and encouraged her to apply to graduate schools, including Harvard. She was convinced she didn’t have a chance of getting in and probably would not have applied without his encouragement, but to her great surprise (but not his), she was accepted.
At Harvard, Victoria decided to pursue her PhD research in the lab of Dr. Lisa Goodrich, who was a new PI at the time. Once again, she was drawn not only to the scientific questions the lab asked, but also to the scientist who led the lab, in whom she could see bits of herself. Lisa had young kids whom she often brought into the lab, and seeing a PI who was also a mother was deeply impactful for Victoria, helping her believe that she, too, could be both. Upon joining Lisa’s lab, Victoria embarked upon a thesis project focused on the meticulously orchestrated development of the intricate inner ear. Using various genetic tools and molecular biology techniques in both mice and chicks, Victoria identified a number of interacting genes that are important for the typical development of the inner ear’s machinery for maintaining balance.
Although Victoria was realistic about “the myriad of things that can happen in life”, she was still interested in becoming a professor. As she was considering postdoc positions, one of her committee members recommended Dr. David Ginty, touting both his science and his mentorship. She was immediately impressed when, during her interview with David, he pulled out a pen and paper and wrote down the names of all of his previous postdocs - first and last names, all spelled correctly - and where they had ended up. She was struck by how proud of and invested he was in his mentees’ successes in whatever career paths they chose. She thus joined the Ginty lab at Johns Hopkins and moved with the lab when, a few years later, it relocated to Harvard, to the very same floor where she had worked during her PhD. Starting with that initial interview exercise and over the course of her postdoc, David taught her that it’s what people will say about you after you die that really lives on. It’s people, not papers, that make your legacy.
In addition to learning these valuable lessons in mentorship, Victoria made significant contributions to our understanding of spinal cord circuitry in mice during her postdoc. She investigated the innervation patterns of touch sensory neurons in hairy skin and their connectivity patterns with distinct cell-types in the spinal cord. There are many different types of sensory neurons that are specialized for processing distinct types of tactile stimuli. Rather than maintaining these distinct information channels in the routing of touch information through the spinal cord and into the brain, Victoria found that spinal cord neurons integrate input from multiple different sensory neuron types (and even top-down inputs from the brain). As she describes it, “everything talks to everything [in the spinal cord] and is a huge mess!”. This observation – that touch information in the spinal cord lacks inherent value and instead represents a complex integration of multiple different channels of touch input – raised an enticing hypothesis. “Turning up the volume” on any number of these channels at the level of the spinal cord – as may happen during development, disease, and even emotional states – could have profound effects on our perception of touch.
Motivated to address this and other questions, Victoria went on to establish her own lab at Rutgers University. Armed with the essential blueprint of how touch information is decoded in the spinal cord as well as various genetic tools developed during her postdoc, her lab investigates the circuit organization and neuromodulation of spinal cord circuits for touch and pain. Victoria’s lab currently focuses on how spinal cord circuitry is impacted by spinal cord injury and can feasibly be rescued. They also study how the brain modulates touch and pain perception at the level of the spinal cord and the importance of spinal touch circuits for social behavior and development.
Although Victoria has been keen on becoming a professor and starting her own research program since her earliest research experiences, she understands as well as anyone how life factors, such as parenthood, can lead one to reassess their career goals. Victoria had her first and only child during her postdoc, when daycare costs exceeded her paycheck. Although she and her husband were fortunate to have some outside help, the financial burden contributed to their decision to not have more than one child. She reflects, “there were many instances when we decided to start a family that I thought to myself ‘this could be the time that I’m quitting’. That is something that should be solved [...]. There’s no reason why we couldn’t have affordable childcare for postdocs.” Now that she is a PI, Victoria is actively using her resources and position (with some extra hard work and creativity) to push the needle on what is possible and expected in terms of trainee compensation.
At every stage of Victoria’s journey, the scientists she encountered along the way planted the seeds of who she aspired to be and who she believed she could be – a teacher, a scientist, a mother, a mentor. Now as the PI of her own lab, she is on the other side, inspiring countless others who see bits of themselves in her and showing them that they, too, can become “cool science teachers”. Undoubtedly, Victoria’s legacy – not only of “papers” but also of “people” – will be hugely impactful.
Find out more about Victoria and her lab’s research here.
Listen to Megan’s full interview with Victoria on June 24, 2024 below!
