Camila de Avila Dal Bo, PhD, MSc

During my PhD studies at Laval University in Canada, my research focused on relaxin-3, a neuropeptide abundantly produced in the brain. Early studies revealed that relaxin-3 is involved in stress, arousal, memory, anxiety, metabolism and food intake43. I was particularly interested in its role in stress-induced eating disorders, and to explore specific questions using different in vivo and in vitro techniques, I worked in collaboration with international laboratories that specialize in relaxin-3/RXFP3 systems (The Florey Institute, Australia), nutritional neuroscience (NutriNeuro, France), G-protein-coupled receptors (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), and chronic stress (Arizona State University, USA). After 5 years of intensive training in molecular methods and mechanistic studies in rodents, I embraced the challenge of undertaking more clinically related studies and joined Dr. John Fryer’s laboratory at the Mayo Clinic, Arizona.