NINDS K99/R00 Awardee - January 2017
Independent Position: Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
Dr. Lauren Lynn Orefice is a Principal Investigator in the Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. David Ginty in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. She aims to elucidate how the peripheral somatosensory system and spinal cord processing of sensory information are affected in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in a mouse model, leading to opportunities in developing potential therapeutic approaches for the treatment of hypersensitivity or aversion to social touch, as well as the abnormal development of social behaviors and nervous system function in ASD. She earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Georgetown University and her B.S. in biology and psychology from Boston College.