Dr. Marcelo Vazquez

Dr. Marcelo Vazquez completed his education at the National University of La Plata in Argentina, including the completion of his medical degree, a residency in radiation therapy and his doctorate in neurobiology and radiobiology. After a one-year postdoctoral fellowship with the department of developmental neurobiology at the Uppsala University School of Medicine in Sweden, Vazquez joined the research staff of Columbia University in the Eye Radiation and Environmental Research Lab in New York. Since 1995, Vazquez has worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory as the NASA/BNL Liaison Scientist for the AGS-NSRL Space Radiation Biology Program. The overall goal of Dr. Vazquez's current research is to assess the effects of the space radiation environment on neuronal cell functional integrity at the molecular and cellular level. Currently, Dr. Vazquez's team is examining the biological effects of cosmic rays exposure using neural cell lines as a paradigm for space radiation neurotoxicity. Also, he is interested to detect long-term behavioral changes induced by space radiation using animal models. The ultimate aims of this research are to identify the potential neurobiological risks for long-term human space exploration. Dr. Vazquez has been recently appointed by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute to serve as the NSBRI/NASA Space Radiation Liaison. In addition, he is co-director of the NASA sponsored Space Radiation Summer School (NSRSS) at BNL.