The Mass General Research Institute (MGRI) is home to a research community of 9,500+ individuals working to understand disease and develop solutions to medicine’s most pressing challenges.

But who are they and what do they do when they’re not conducting research? Learn more about them in this new series, #HumansOfMGRI.

From clinical research coordinators to postdoctoral fellows, research technicians, graduate students and principal investigators—they are all part of the Mass General Research Institute.

Our next guest in the series is Leidys Gutiérrez-Martínez, MD, MSc

What lab/department do you work in?

I work as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health and the Aging and Brain Health Research (ABHR) lab, within the Neurology department at the Massachusetts General Hospital, under the mentorship of Alessandro Biffi, MD, and Jonathan Rosand, MD, MSc.

My mentors are key to my growth at this stage of my career as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow.

Dr. Biffi is an Assistant Professor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School, inpatient Medical Director of the Department of Neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and Founder and Director of ABHR.

Dr. Rosand is Co-Founder and Managing Co-Director of the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health and a Professor of Neurology at Harvard.

Our groups are working on different projects geared towards brain care, aiming to shift the focus of brain care from reactive to preventive while taking into account genetic causes and individual and population factors—such as social determinants of health—with the vision to deliver brain care for all.

The project I’m working on currently focuses on secondary prevention, nested within a longitudinal study of survivors of hemorrhagic stroke recruited at MGH.

We aim to test whether an individual’s values for the McCance Brain Care Score™ can predict recurrent stroke and risk of vascular-related cognitive impairment within 24 months after a hemorrhagic stroke.

Additionally, we aim to understand how individual and structural social determinants of health may relate to Brain Care Score values among patients from this population.

When and why did you get interested in the work that you are doing?

Throughout medical school, my disease-oriented clinical interest evolved into a more holistic approach incorporating the population health science perspective to the complex picture of human health.

This shift was facilitated by my involvement in epidemiology research and public health discussions since early years of my studies.

In those years, as a teaching assistant in epidemiology, I also learned to think about the disease in quantitative terms, as a measure of the burden of a sick individual in a population and its subsequent impact on society.

I came to embrace the idea of primary prevention through lifestyle medicine as a strategy to tackle chronic disease as the most burdensome groups of disease in the global population.

At the same time, my interest in the brain stemmed from my interest in human behavior and the understanding of the brain as a central organ commanding human potential to function and play a role in the society through daily-life decision-making.

I feel fortunate to have found these MGB groups to affiliate with that combine my background and interests with my own vision.

What do you like to do outside of work? 

I enjoy sports, especially in the outdoors, hiking, traveling, dancing, and singing.

Since I recently moved to the East Coast from the Midwest, I’m eager to explore new places, traditions, types of food, and scenery. For instance, this year, I celebrated the 4th of July holiday at Singing Beach in Manchester by the Sea and loved it!

What is your favorite TV show, podcast, book, or movie? 

Among my favorite books: Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, who motivated me to pursue medicine and ignited my interest in the brain in relation to human potential and its stunning capacity for resilience amidst adversity.

On the other hand, I also like Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez, a 1982 Colombian Nobel Prize winner, who portrays with magical realism the cultural traditions of the Caribbean of Colombia, where my family comes from.

A fun fact about yourself

I was born in the oil capital of Colombia (Barrancabermeja) and since I can remember, I have been an enthusiastic choir singer. Now that I’m in Boston, I look forward to enjoying the rich musical culture it offers as part of the stage and the audience.

About the Mass General Research Institute
Research at Massachusetts General Hospital is interwoven through more than 30 different departments, centers and institutes. Our research includes fundamental, lab-based science; clinical trials to test new drugs, devices and diagnostic tools; and community and population-based research to improve health outcomes across populations and eliminate disparities in care.
Support our Research