Dr. Georgina Gyarmati is an assistant professor of research at the Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. She received her MD degree from Semmelweis University Medical School, Budapest, Hungary, and her Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, US. She completed her postdoctoral training in renal physiology at the University of Southern California. She joined the faculty of USC Keck School of Medicine in 2022.
Dr. Gyarmati’s current research focuses on the characterization and human and preclinical therapeutic translation of a new vascular cell type that she discovered and named neuro-endothelial cell (NEC). This new line of research is consistent with her overall goal to develop new, highly effective, and mechanism-based therapeutic strategies for cardiovascular diseases by the discovery and targeting of novel cell and molecular targets.
Dr. Gyarmati’s main line of research as a postdoctoral fellow in the Peti-Peterdi laboratory identified new neuron-like structural and functional features of the macula densa, a niche of 20-25 MD cells in each nephron functioning as a ganglion-like mini-brain with somatosensory neuroepithelial and neuroendocrine functions. These results suggest that MD cells can sense, process, and communicate a variety of signals in the local and systemic environment to control key renal functions and provide renal sensory input to the central nervous system in a kidney-brain axis.
Dr. Gyarmati has made major contributions to the development of several applications of intravital imaging technology in the Multiphoton Microscopy Core of which she became Assistant Director in 2022. This state-of-the-art and high-power imaging technique allow to quantitatively visualize the most basic (patho)physiological parameters of several organs including the kidney, brain, liver, spleen, and skin.