Catherine DeMarino

Dr. Catherine DeMarino is a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She received her Bachelor of Science from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011, her Master of Science in Physiology and Biophysics from Georgetown University in 2012, and her Doctor of Philosophy in Biosciences from George Mason University in 2019. Under Dr. Fatah Kashanchi’s mentorship, she has co-authored 16 peer-reviewed manuscripts- 3 of which are first authorships- involving the role of extracellular vesicles in infectious diseases, such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1), Human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV-1) and Ebola, in addition to their implications in therapeutic options, such as combination antiretroviral therapeutics (cART) and cannabidiol (CBD), as well as the involvement in drug abuse, such as methamphetamine. Dr. DeMarino has also presented several talks and posters at professional and academic science conferences, such as 1st Annual Extracellular Vesicles and Infectious Disease in Potomac, MD and the American Society for Exosomes and Microvesicles in Pacific Grove, California.

Dr. DeMarino has received numerous awards, which highlight her research and teaching accomplishments, including the National Institutes of Health’s Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship, the George Mason University School of Systems Biology Impact Award given to the student with the greatest number of peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, awards, and outreach efforts, the John N. Brady Award for Excellence in Retrovirus Research, the Multidisciplinary Research Initiative in Modeling, Simulation and Analytics Award, and the Elaine Joyce Outstanding Biology Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award. In addition, Dr. DeMarino has received several funding awards from George Mason University, including the Bioscience Provost Award Fellowship and the BIOS PhD Student Summer Research Fellowship. After finishing her PhD, Dr. DeMarino began her Post-doctoral training in Dr. Avindra Nath’s lab at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.