About the SSMV
- Program Overview
- SSMV Faculty & Staff
- Current Students
- Prospective Students
- Get Involved
- SSMV Calendar
- Donate
- Contact the SSMV
Return to
Instructor
Educational Background
Centre College, B.S. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Vanderbilt University, Ph.D. Biological Sciences
On Teaching
Throughout my academic career, I have had educators who aim to create great learners. Learning can be uncomfortable because it requires students to exist in uncertainty until a breakthrough moment happens. As an educator, I lead with curiosity and work to create environments where students feel safe exploring academic interests, even when discomfort is part of the process. I view failure as progress, not an endpoint. I am also deeply committed to making students active participants in projects, so they can directly contribute to scientific advancements.
On Research
I am a molecular biologist studying protein quality control, specifically protein degradation. My research focuses on proteostasis, the dynamic regulation that maintains functional proteins while removing non-functional ones. I investigated how cells degrade misfolded thyroglobulin, a thyroid hormone precursor, through the ER-phagy pathway. My work used affinity purification-mass spectrometry and proteomics to examine which ER-phagy receptors interact with and deliver thyroglobulin to the lysosome for degradation. ER-phagy is a promising degradation pathway with many unanswered questions. We know little about which proteins are degradation targets for this pathway and how the targets are identified.
Publications
- Hazari Y, Habbouche L, Garcia Lopez V, Urra H, et al. “Targeting the ER stress sensor IRE1 protects the liver from fibrosis through the downregulation of the proteostasis factor P4HB/PDIA1.” Hepatology 2026 doi:10.1097/HEP.0000000000001335
- Garcia Lopez V, Plate L. “Comparative Interactome Profiling of Nonstructural Protein 3 Across SARS-CoV-2 Variants Emerged During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Viruses 2025 doi: 10.3390/v17030447
- Wright MT, Timalsina B, Garcia Lopez V, Hermanson JN, Garcia S, Plate L. “Time-resolved interactome profiling deconvolutes secretory protein quality control dynamics.” Mol Syst Biol 2024 doi: 10.1038/s44320-024-00058-1
- Parnell J, Fazili I, Bloch S, Lacy B, Garcia-Lopez V, Bernard R, Skaar E, Edwards K, Nicholson M. “Two-step Testing for Clostridioides Difficile is Inadequate in Differentiating Infection From Colonization in Children.” Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition 2021 doi: 10.1097/MPG.0000000000002944
- League G, Estevez-Lao T, Yan Y, Garcia-Lopez V, Hillyer J. “Anopheles gambiae larvae mount stronger immune responses against bacterial infection than adults: evidence of adaptive decoupling in mosquitoes.” Parasites & Vectors 2017 doi: 10.1186/s13071-017-2302-6