Dr Blanca Diaz Castro profile picture

Dr Blanca Díaz Castro

(She/her)

Group Leader

Understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms that link brain blood vessel dysfunction and dementia

Condition

Alzheimer's disease, Vascular dementia

Topics

Ageing, Cell biology of neurons & glia, Immune system, Molecular mechanisms, Vascular system

Techniques

Advanced microscopy & imaging, Bioinformatics, CRISPR, Mass spec-based proteomics, Mouse in vivo imaging, Next generation sequencing

Biography

Dr Blanca Díaz Castro’s research focuses on the understanding of astrocyte-vasculature interactions and how they are important for brain function, its communication with the periphery, and the development of dementia. In particular, Dr Blanca Díaz Castro investigates the role of the astrocyte endfoot, a very specialized compartment that allows astrocytes to mediate interactions between the brain and its blood vessels, in health and diseases that lead to cognitive decline.

Dr Blanca Díaz Castro joined the UK DRI at Edinburgh in October 2019. She obtained her PhD degree at the University of Seville - Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBiS) and after a brief stay at Northwestern University, Chicago, she completed her postdoctoral research at University of California, Los Angeles.

News

Key publications

Nat Neurosci
Published
Reactive astrocyte nomenclature, definitions, and future directions.
Authors
Carole Escartin, Elena Galea, András Lakatos, James P O'Callaghan, Gabor C Petzold, Alberto Serrano-Pozo, Christian Steinhäuser, Andrea Volterra, Giorgio Carmignoto, Amit Agarwal, Nicola J Allen, Alfonso Araque, Luis Barbeito, Ari Barzilai, Dwight E Bergles, Gilles Bonvento, Arthur M Butt, Wei-Ting Chen, Martine Cohen-Salmon, Colm Cunningham, Benjamin Deneen, Bart De Strooper, Blanca Díaz-Castro, Cinthia Farina, Marc Freeman, Vittorio Gallo, James E Goldman, Steven A Goldman, Magdalena Götz, Antonia Gutiérrez, Philip G Haydon, Dieter H Heiland, Elly M Hol, Matthew G Holt, Masamitsu Iino, Ksenia V Kastanenka, Helmut Kettenmann, Baljit S Khakh, Schuichi Koizumi, C Justin Lee, Shane A Liddelow, Brian A MacVicar, Pierre Magistretti, Albee Messing, Anusha Mishra, Anna V Molofsky, Keith K Murai, Christopher M Norris, Seiji Okada, Stéphane H R Oliet, João F Oliveira, Aude Panatier, Vladimir Parpura, Marcela Pekna, Milos Pekny, Luc Pellerin, Gertrudis Perea, Beatriz G Pérez-Nievas, Frank W Pfrieger, Kira E Poskanzer, Francisco J Quintana, Richard M Ransohoff, Miriam Riquelme-Perez, Stefanie Robel, Christine R Rose, Jeffrey D Rothstein, Nathalie Rouach, David H Rowitch, Alexey Semyanov, Swetlana Sirko, Harald Sontheimer, Raymond A Swanson, Javier Vitorica, Ina-Beate Wanner, Levi B Wood, Jiaqian Wu, Binhai Zheng, Eduardo R Zimmer, Robert Zorec, Michael V Sofroniew, Alexei Verkhratsky
Reactive astrocyte nomenclature, definitions, and future directions.

Díaz Castro Lab

Explore the work of the Díaz Castro Lab, exploring the architecture, function and dysfunction of astrocyte-vasculature interactions

Díaz-Castro Lab profile
Astrocytes