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Imilce A. Rodriguez-Fernandez, PhD (she/her/hers)

Assistant Professor
University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras
San Juan, Puerto Rico, United States

Dr. Imilce A. Rodriguez-Fernandez is originally from Guayama, Puerto Rico. She received her B.Sc. in Microbiology from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez and a Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) under the mentorship of Dr. Esteban Dell’Angelica. Here she first learned how to use the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model system to screen for genetic modifiers of genes mutated in Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome, a rare form of human albinism.
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​ She obtained a postdoctoral training from the lab of Dr. Heinrich Jasper that started at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging located in Novato CA (where she was awarded an F32 NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral fellowship) and completed at the biotech company Genentech Inc. in South San Francisco, CA (Fun fact: She was part of the only fruit fly lab at Genentech!). During her postdoc she characterized a molecular mechanism used by intestinal stem cells to deal with protein stress and identified interventions to restore this function in old animals.

She joined the Universit y of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras in 2021 as an assistant professor at the College of Natural Sciences, Department of Biology. Besides teaching undergrad- and graduate-level courses, Dr. Rodriguez leads a research team studying the pathways used by adult stem cells to communicate with the gut microbiome and vice-versa versa using Drosophila. Their ultimate goal is to use that knowledge to understand how these interactions influence the health and aging of the animal to identify new interventions that promote healthspan.

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