Mighty Member since January 2018
Dr. Dixon-Salazar* is a neuroscientist, geneticist, and, patient advocate. Her desire to get her Ph.D. was inspired by her daughter who developed Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS) at the age of 2. She did her Ph.D. and post-doctoral work at UC, San Diego where she studied the mechanisms of brain development and synaptic plasticity, identified genetic causes of rare disorders in children, and researched precision therapeutics in stem cell and animal models of pediatric disease. During her research tenure, and after 16 years of watching daily, unrelenting seizures in her child, she uncovered the driver of her daughter’s illness and identified a novel precision therapy that improved her child’s life. Dr. Dixon-Salazar is an accomplished scientist, proven thought leader, highly sought-after speaker, and staunch advocate for genomic medicine, patient-driven research, and patient empowerment. *Dr. Dixon-Salazar did not receive any compensation for writing this story and the content is her own work.