Cátia
Gomes

Cátia Gomes is an Assistant Research Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics at Indiana University School of Medicine, and a primary member of the Stark Neurosciences Research Institute. Dr. Gomes received her undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Évora, followed by a Master’s degree in Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine from NOVA University of Lisbon, and a PhD in Pharmacy from the University of Lisbon, Portugal. During her doctoral training she identified and characterized an abnormal population of toxic astrocytes in an Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis mouse model, and used directly converted astrocytes from ALS patient’s fibroblasts as a platform to characterize this population in humans and screen for potential therapeutic agents. Dr. Gomes joined the Indiana University as a postdoctoral researcher in 2020 and was promoted to her current role in 2023. Building on her expertise in neuroinflammation and glial biology, she expanded her research program to study retinal neurodegeneration. Her research focuses on developing human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-based models to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying glaucoma and other neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Gomes has made important contributions to the vision research field by demonstrating how reactive astrocytes promote retinal ganglion cell degeneration in human glaucoma models and by developing innovative stem cell-based and microfluidic platforms to study neuroinflammation, axonal degeneration, and neuron-glia interactions in the visual system. Her work has been supported by the BrightFocus Foundation, Glaucoma Research Foundation, Knights Templar Eye Foundation and other competitive funding mechanisms. Through the integration of stem cell biology, neuroimmunology and bioengineering, Dr. Gomes aims to accelerate the discovery of therapeutic strategies to prevent vision loss and improve outcomes for patients with glaucoma and other optic neuropathies.