Hispanic Heritage Month: Highlighting the Hispanic Voices in Mass General’s Research Community

Dr. Kamran is a radiation oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School. In her clinic, she specializes in the treatment of genitourinary cancers. Her research interests focus on the application of computational genomic approaches to characterize tumor evolution to treatment and understand mechanisms of toxicity and resistance to radiation and chemoradiation. Her long-term goal is to use these approaches to guide the design of clinical trials of high-precision radiation therapy to enable personalized approaches to delivery of radiation therapy for patients with genitourinary cancers.

Dr. Lozano has a strong interest in clinical research in orthopaedic oncology. His academic practice involves multiple clinical studies evaluating particular neoplastic problems of osseous and connective tissue nature. His focus of research includes clinical outcomes after reconstructive oncologic surgery in the upper and lower extremities, oncologic problems in the upper extremity and functional outcomes after surgical treatment in patients with primary sarcomas of bone and soft-tissue, as well as metastatic bone disease.

David Perez, MD, MMSc, is a dual trained Neurologist-Psychiatrist and Cognitive-Affective Neuroscientist. Clinically, Dr. Perez works in the FND Unit at Mass General to diagnose and treat patients across the spectrum of functional neurological disorder.

The Functional Neurological Disorder Research Group uses advanced multimodal brain magnetic resonance imaging techniques, along with neuropsychiatric characterization, to study the biological basis of Functional Neurological Disorder and related conditions.

Patients with brain-mind-body symptoms including Functional Seizures, Functional Movement Disorders, Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness, and Functional Cognitive Disorder experience symptoms that are common yet incompletely understood.

The mission of the Functional Neurological Disorder Research Group at Massachusetts General Hospital, working in collaboration with researchers at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and others within the Harvard Medical School hospital community, is to characterize the pathophysiology of Functional Neurological Disorder – with a long-term aim of aiding the development of biologically-informed treatments.

Dr. Ramirez Gomez is part of the Multicultural Alzheimer Prevention Program (MAPP) faculty at MGH and collaborates in multiple projects from the group. Her research goals are to identify preclinical biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and related dementias (AD/ADRD) and find ways to better assist underserved Spanish language populations with dementia, including patients and their caregivers.

She received a minority diversity supplement from the National Institute on Aging to study whether changes in the ability to remember odors can serve as a novel specific biomarker for Alzheimer’s Disease and understand the relationship between AD neuropathological changes and the onset of changes in olfactory function.

Dr. Ramirez Gomez’s current research projects are supported by grants from the Alzheimer’s Association and Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.  These aim to combine virtually-delivered Mentalizing Imagery Therapy with caregiver skills training to create a comprehensive and accessible family caregiver intervention for Latinos and to create smartphone tools for Latino family caregivers.