Maria Clarke, MD Candidate

Maria is originally from southern California but moved to northern California to study Neurobiology Physiology and Behavior at UC Davis, where she was introduced to medical research in Dr. Ala Moshiris lab, investigating the genetic basis of retinopathies. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she went on to work in Tippi Mackenzie’s lab at UCSF in the Department of Surgery and Center for Maternal Fetal Precision Medicine. Classically known as the birthplace of fetal surgery, she was drawn by the unique approach of treating conditions before birth. Maria spent 3.5 years there developing antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapies for the prenatal/perinatal treatment of Angelman Syndrome and Spinal Muscular Atrophy, using small and large animal models of in-utero surgical delivery, with the goal of developing a translational pipeline leading towards clinical treatments. After completing these projects, she went on to pursue an M.D. at UC Davis, and she is currently a second-year medical student in the ARC-MD research program. Maria feels fortunate to be able to continue working on therapies for Angelman Syndrome as part of the research team in the lab of Dr. Diana Farmer and Dr. Aijun Wang at UC Davis.