Maya-Vetencourt José Fernando

Dr. José Fernando Maya-Vetencourt obtained his Bachelor degree in Biology at the University of the Andes in Merida. Later on, he got a MSc degree on Biochemistry and Cellular Biology, in the context of an international research project, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. Afterwards, he earned a PhD degree and a Post Doc in Neurobiology at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa while working with Lamberto Maffei. He then moved as a Post Doc to the NEST laboratory. He also worked as a Research Scientist at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genova with Fabio Benfenati. Recently, he obtained an Associate Professor Position in the Biology Department, Physiology Institute, at the University of Pisa. He is also an affiliated senior researcher in the NSYN Department at the IIT. His research interests centre on (i) neuronal interfaces designed to substitute damaged tissues in the nervous system, (ii) optogenetics- and experience-dependent mechanisms of neuronal plasticity that underlie sensory perception as well as behaviour, and (iii) retinal circuitries under physiological and pathological conditions. Dr. Maya-Vetencourt is editor of 1 neuroscience book, author of 4 book chapters, and coinventor in 4 patents. He has published 31 scientific manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, out of which 27 indexed in pubmed including: Science, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, Journal of Physiology, Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, European Journal of Neuroscience, Progress in Neurobiology, Experimental Eye Research, Nanomedicine, and others. He has delivered more than 20 scientific presentations at international meetings abroad. His academic record includes > 3450 citations with an “H-index” of 20 (Google Scholar), and an “impact factor per manuscript” of 12.54. He has also supervised > 20 students for Master Thesis in the Degree of Neuroscience and Biotechnology. He is member of the Italian Society of Neuroscience (SINS), the American Society of Neuroscience (SfN), and the Italian Physiological Society (SIF). He works as an associate review editor for “Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience” and “Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience”. In 2017, he was awarded two prestigious and independent scientific recognitions as "Young Investigator": one by the Italian Physiological Society in Pavia and another by the Federation of European Physiological Societies in Vienna. Using a combination of molecular assays for gene expression and epigenetic analysis, molecular biology, and electrophysiology as a functional readout, Dr. Maya-Vetencourt was among the first to pioneer experimental approaches that reactivate juvenile-like plasticity in the adult visual system (Nat Neurosc 2007; Science 2008). Later on, he investigated mechanisms that regulate chromatin susceptibility to transcription and lie behind the reinstatement of plasticity in the adult brain (Eur J Neurosci 2011). More recently, while working with with Fabio Benfenati at the IIT, he had the opportunity to set up an electrophysiology laboratory to investigate the application of photovoltaic interfaces in degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa in rodents. The aim of the artificial retina project is to promote the development of novel therapeutic alternatives in animal models of blindness secondary to photoreceptors degeneration. So far the authors have fabricated and validated a fully organic prosthetic device for in vivo subretinal implantation in the eye of RCS rats (Nat Mat 2017). Electrophysiological and behavioral analysis revealed a significant and prosthesis-dependent recovery of light-sensitivity and visual acuity that persists up to 6 months after surgery. The rescue of visual functions was accompanied by an increased basal metabolic activity of the primary visual cortex, as demonstrated by positron emission tomography imaging. These findings highlight the possibility of developing a new generation of fully organic, highly biocompatible, low cost, and functionally autonomous photovoltaic prostheses for subretinal implants to treat degenerative blindness. Dr. Maya-Vetencourt has also been working with pigs. The aim of this project is to set-up the surgical implant procedure in an eye similar to that of humans, and to evaluate both biocompatibility and the recovery of visual functions in the swine model of blindness (Front Bioeng Biotech 2020). Another subject of inerest is the development and exploitation of innovative “liquid” devices as retinal prostheses (Nat Nanotech 2020a). The objective is to down-scale the dimension of the initial planar prosthesis to address “age-related macular degeneration” (Nat Nanotech 2020b).