Helena Biasibetti Brendler

Helena is originally from Brazil where she received a BSc in Biomedical Science at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. She completed a Masters in Biochemistry at the same University where she investigated metabolic diseases and their outcome in the brain. In her PhD studies at UBC under the supervision of Dr. Michael Kobor, she is interested in understanding how the environment gets under the skin via the epigenetic machinery. Her current PhD project focuses on integrating different epigenetic marks in response to stress and ethanol exposure in vitro and in vivo to better understand the causality of epigenetic changes in the brain. The purpose of her research is to expand our understanding of environmental cues in early development and their long-lasting effects on behavior, development, neurobiology, and epigenetics. In pursuit of this project, she is supported by UBC’s International Doctoral Fellowship.