Physician-Scientist · Translational Immunology
PhD immunologist and MD candidate with postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School / MGH. I study how immune cells make decisions — and train to treat the patients those decisions affect.
Current
MD Candidate
St. George's University
Nature Biomed Eng
62 citations
Trained & Published At
0
Peer-Reviewed Publications
All first / co-first author
Nature Biomed Eng · JBC · JLB · Sci Rep
0+
Total Citations
Google Scholar
Across 4 publications
0.1
Peak Impact Factor
Nature Biomedical Engineering
Top-decile translational journal
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Years Research Experience
Continuous laboratory work
CRO → PhD → Harvard postdoc
Research Focus
My research spans three interrelated domains — each grounded in rigorous molecular science and oriented toward understanding disease at the level that changes what physicians can offer.
Investigating how microRNAs and signaling cascades — particularly the miR-15a/16–MEK1–ERK1/2–Elk1 axis — govern T-cell activation and proliferative capacity, with implications for autoimmunity, oncology, and post-surgical immune regulation.
Designing immune-instructive biomaterials and patient-derived organoid systems that recapitulate disease microenvironments — bridging bench discoveries to testable therapeutic hypotheses.
Connecting molecular-level discoveries in immune signaling to measurable clinical outcomes — spanning oncology, infectious disease, and chronic inflammatory conditions.
Selected Work
Engineered mesoporous biomaterials that capture bacterial PAMPs in vivo generate durable immune protection against sepsis — a translational platform with direct relevance to post-surgical infection prevention.
Ureña F, et al. · Nature Biomedical Engineering (2022) · 10.1038/s41551-021-00756-3
Identified miR-15a/16 as a molecular brake on T-cell proliferation, demonstrating that activation-induced microRNA downregulation gates the MEK–ERK axis — a finding with therapeutic implications for autoimmunity and immunotherapy.
Ureña F, et al. · Journal of Biological Chemistry (2022) · 10.1016/j.jbc.2022.101639
Selenoprotein I functions as a metabolic regulator of T-cell fate decisions, shifting the Treg/Th17 balance — with implications for controlling post-operative inflammation and autoimmune flares.
Ureña F, et al. · Journal of Leukocyte Biology (2022) · 10.1002/JLB.1A0122-080R
Clinical Training
My clinical training is built on a simple conviction: the best physicians are the ones who understand disease at a molecular level. Every rotation sharpens my ability to ask the right question — and to know which experiments would answer it.
I have not yet committed to a specialty. I am deliberately keeping an open mind through clinical exposure, pursuing programs with strong research infrastructure and physician-scientist tracks.
Areas of Clinical Interest
“The physician-scientist is not two jobs — it is one vocation: to understand disease deeply enough to change it.”
Curriculum Vitae
A decade of continuous research — from CRO preclinical studies to Nature-published biomaterials to Harvard postdoctoral fellowship — integrated with structured medical training and a commitment to building a physician-scientist career.
Available for residency interviews, research collaborations, and faculty conversations.
Get In Touch
I reply within one week. Ideal conversations: research partnerships, residency fit discussions, and physician-scientist faculty introductions.