AwardOctober 2025
Admitted to University of Palermo-UTMB Dual PhD Program
Accepted into the dual degree PhD program in Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostics jointly offered by the University of Palermo and UTMB.
Alfredo Sandoval
MD-PhD Student in Neuroscience
Latest News & Updates
PublicationAugust 2025
Paper accepted in Journal of Neuroscience
Our paper 'Sensory Deficits in mice with Lateral Spinal Cord Hemisection Mimic the Brown-Séquard Syndrome' was accepted for publication.
PublicationAugust 2025
Paper accepted in Molecular Therapy Methods & Clinical Development
Our paper 'Adeno-Associated Viral Vector Resource for the RNA-Targeting Cas13d: A Comparison of High Fidelity Variants, DjCas13d and hfCas13d' was accepted for publication.
PublicationOctober 2024
Paper Published in Science Translational Medicine
Our paper 'Reduction of Prolonged Excitatory Neuron Swelling After Spinal Cord Injury Improves Locomotor Recovery in Mice' was published in Science Translational Medicine.
About Me
I'm an MD-PhD student in neuroscience working at the intersection of deep learning, computer vision, and behavioral neuroscience. I build markerless pose estimation and behavioral-state modeling pipelines that turn video of freely behaving animals into objective measurements of gait, pain responses, and recovery after spinal cord injury. Earlier in my training I developed AAV and CRISPR-based tools for the nervous system — work I now extend with computational methods.
Research Focus
Spinal Cord Injury • Movement Recovery • Pose Estimation • Behavioral Phenotyping • Quantitative Phenotyping • Computational Tools
Education
MD - Doctor of Medicine & PhD - Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience
University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB)
Researching movement and recovery after spinal cord injury through computational and experimental neuroscience.
PhD - Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostics
University of Palermo (UNIPA)
Dual degree PhD program in collaboration with UTMB focusing on spinal cord injury research.
BS in Neuroscience (with Honors)
University of Texas at Dallas (UTD)
Thesis: "Engineering the Neuronal Genome with CRISPR-Cas".
AAS in Paramedicine
McLennan Community College
Clinical training in emergency medical techniques and acute patient care.
Highlighted Publications
2024·Science translational medicine 16 (766), eadn7095
Reduction of prolonged excitatory neuron swelling after spinal cord injury improves locomotor recovery in mice (opens in new tab)
Li, Q., Sandoval, A., Moth, J., Shang, J., Liew, J. Y., Dunn, T., Yang, Z., Su, J., Henwood, M., Williams, P., Chen, B.
2025·Molecular Therapy Methods & Clinical Development
Adeno-Associated Viral Vector Resource for the RNA-Targeting Cas13d: A Comparison of High Fidelity Variants, DjCas13d and hfCas13d (opens in new tab)
Back, F., Sandoval, A., Vu, L. M., Hong, V. M., Bhaskara, A., Rodriguez, S. R., O'Brien, J. T., Kolber, B. J., Kroener, S., Ploski, J. E.