“We are trying to understand what is happening at the cellular and molecular level in peripheral nerves and what’s changing in these patients with neuropathies,” she said. “We will study peripheral nerves recovered from amputation surgeries, most of which are the result of complications due to diabetic neuropathy.”

Peripheral neuropathies, resulting from diabetes, trauma, chemotherapy or other causes, affect more than 20 million people in the U.S. These neuropathies can encompass pain or loss of sensation, Tavares Ferreira said.

“We believe they are caused by pathological changes in the distal axons of sensory neurons, which emanate from the dorsal root ganglion. Most people who suffer from these neuropathies are only able to manage the symptoms; they can’t modify the disease,” she said. “Our main goal is to create foundational knowledge of peripheral neuropathy in human tissues so that, maybe someday, there can be disease-modifying drugs.”

Her project will use spatial transcriptomics, which maps gene expression in different regions of a tissue, to investigate the molecular changes underlying axonal degeneration with a focus on disruptions in mRNA transport within peripheral axons.

“Xenium spatial transcriptomics is a high-resolution technique that allows you to see the axonal compartment with unprecedented resolution,” she said. “We hope this can give us an idea of what types of fibers might be affected and how that could explain the different symptoms that people experience.”

Tavares Ferreira was a postdoctoral fellow at UT Dallas before joining the faculty in 2024 and serves as the principal investigator of the Axon Biology and Neuroinformatics Lab.

Source – UT Dallas