Del Rio-Tsonis distinguishes herself among scholars

By Kristen Carlson

Enthusiastic.

Dedicated.

Accomplished.

These are just a few of the qualities displayed by Katia Del Rio-Tsonis that make her shine among her colleagues.

These characteristics also helped Del Rio-Tsonis win the Distinguished Scholar Award for a junior faculty member in August 2004.

"I nominated Dr. Del Rio-Tsonis for the . . . award because she is a very well-respected and productive scientist and teacher," said zoology chair and professor, Doug Meikle. "Evidence of her national reputation is the fact that she has received two large research awards from the National Institutes of Health to support her research on lens regeneration."

Meikle said that the grants, which total almost $725,000, are highly competitive.

"The fact that she received two grants during her pre-tenure run indicates how highly her peers (who review the grants) think about her research," Meikle said. Del Rio-Tsonis has been researching human retinal stem cells and testing their potential using chick embryonic eyes. She has found that the human retinal stem cells have the capability to survive in the animal model and have the potential to become different retinal cell types once in the eye.

Before coming to Miami she worked in cancer research, which has influenced her current investigations.

"I believe there is a close connection between cancer genes that get activated during the disease state and the genes that are on during normal development and regeneration," she said.  

Del Rio-Tsonis herself has had more than 46 articles published in journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Development, Developmental Biology and Journal of Immunology.

"This is how you get recognized in our field for one, but more importantly that is how you contribute to science so that other scientists can learn and expand from your work," said Del Rio-Tsonis.