Dr. Suelyn Koerich
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, McGovern Medical School, UTHealth Houston
For Dr. Suelyn Koerich, the path to neuroscience began in an unexpected place: behind the counter of a pharmacy in Brazil. Trained as a pharmacist, Suelyn spent five years helping patients manage their medications. But the puzzle of how those drugs worked—particularly their effects on the brain—were a constant source of fascination for her. This curiosity led her to leave behind a stable job and return to school for a master’s degree in neuroscience. Since then, she has been driven by this desire to deeply understand the why and how of pathophysiology in neurological conditions, in the hope of identifying new targets for clinical intervention. Now, as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHealth) at Houston, Suelyn investigates biological mechanisms and risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease and develops innovative therapeutic strategies.
The decision to pursue neuroscience was also a deeply personal one, sparked by her grandmother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Witnessing the disease’s toll on her loved ones—not just her grandmother but the whole family—gave Suelyn the resolve to dedicate her research to this devastating condition, and to “find hope for patients and their families”. During her master’s studies, Suelyn worked broadly on brain metabolism in rats, as Alzheimer’s-specific transgenic mouse models were not available in her chosen laboratory at the time. This limitation, however, laid the foundation for her lasting interest in systemic processes—how metabolism, inflammation, and environment influence neural health beyond genetic risk factors.
For her PhD, Suelyn sought out one of the few laboratories in Brazil with expertise in Alzheimer’s research at the time, driving sixteen hours across the country to join the group of Dr. Antônio Carlos Pinheiro de Oliveira. Her doctoral project focused on the role of cholesterol metabolism in Alzheimer’s pathology. While amyloid plaques and tau tangles remain the classical hallmarks of the disease, disruptions in systemic metabolism are increasingly being recognized as critical contributors to pathology. Cholesterol is important for neuronal communication and is abundantly present in myelin sheaths on axons and in dendritic spines. But the relationship between cholesterol in diet and brain cholesterol metabolism is still unclear, and cholesterol-lowering therapies for Alzheimer’s patients have shown mixed results.
To study these questions, Suelyn used an Alzheimer’s mouse model (APP/PS1 transgenics that develop plaques around six to nine months) and fed them cholesterol-enriched diets. Because commercial preparations were prohibitively expensive, the lab made them by hand, along with cleaning cages and maintaining mouse colonies. Contrasting this with the prevalence of on-site animal care facilities staffed by technicians and veterinarians in US institutions, Suelyn highlights the limited resources and structural support typically accessible to researchers in Brazil. Science in Brazil, she emphasizes, required patience and resilience. Even basic reagents like antibodies could take six months to arrive. But the community compensated with creativity and collaborative teamwork. “We could do more with less,” she says. “That was the spirit.”
Suelyn’s doctoral work surprisingly revealed no significant impact of cholesterol diets on plaque formation in mice or any reduction in performance on memory tasks like novel object recognition tests. However, mice fed a high-cholesterol diet did exhibit altered microglial activity and higher levels of cytokines such as IL-18 in the hippocampus, indicative of increased neuroinflammation. Clinical studies have reported similar patterns in patients, with dementia groups showing higher LDL cholesterol and inflammatory cytokines compared to controls. These findings raise the possibility of nutrition as a modifiable risk factor in neural health, acting as a link between metabolism, chronic inflammation, and cognitive decline. This work also crystallized what has since become a central motivating question for Suelyn: how does peripheral and central inflammation influence disease progression in neurodegenerative disorders? Is inflammation a cause or a consequence?
Near the end of her PhD, Suelyn’s mentor introduced her to Dr. Natalia Pessoa Rocha, a faculty member in Dr. Claudio Soto’s research group at UTHealth, who invited her to join the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Opportunities like this seemed rare, and Suelyn decided the offer was too good to pass up. She moved to the US shortly afterwards, completing and defending her thesis remotely. At UTHealth, she quickly distinguished herself through her skill in animal surgery. Her first assignments involved delicate jugular vein surgeries, and by refining the technique, she became central to a new project exploring plasma exchange as an intervention in Alzheimer’s models. Inspired by encouraging outcomes in early human clinical trials, the proposal was to remove plasma and replace it with an albumin solution, effectively “washing” the blood of pathological factors. Albumin, the most abundant protein in plasma, can bind amyloid-β (the peptide that aggregates to form plaques) and facilitate its clearance from the brain. By adapting the procedure to mice—an advance previously considered technically infeasible in such small animals without fatal outcomes—Suelyn demonstrated that repeated exchanges reduced plaques in the neocortex and hippocampus. This not only validated the therapeutic potential of the approach but opened the door to fundamental studies for resolving mechanistic ambiguity: was it primarily related to amyloid clearance by albumin binding, or a reduction in neuroinflammation through removal of pro-inflammatory components like cytokines? Suelyn thus decided to delve deeper into the biology of neuro-immune interactions and investigate how inflammatory signaling and microglia—the resident immune cells of the brain—shape Alzheimer’s progression.
To expand her technological repertoire for answering these questions, Suelyn moved to the lab of Dr. Keran Ma, also at UTHealth, where she now studies the role of microglia in Alzheimer’s using in vivo imaging and behavioral assays. In particular, she is investigating how central-peripheral immune crosstalk, such as via circulating factors, can influence microglial activity in the brain, leading to heightened neuro-inflammation and synaptic pruning. These inflammatory responses can contribute to cognitive decline by interfering with hippocampal function in learning and memory. By integrating the plasma exchange techniques, Suelyn aims to examine the potential for targeted immune system alterations and to identify critical time windows for effective therapeutic intervention. Her transition was bolstered by a remarkable accomplishment: securing a three-year, $200,000 grant from the Alzheimer’s Association in her first year as a postdoc. Importantly, she was able to bring the grant with her when moving labs, giving her a rare degree of independence in shaping her scientific program.
While the move to the US was transformative for Suelyn’s career, giving her expanded access to structural, technical, and financial support, the journey has not been without obstacles. As a woman, a Latina, and a non-native English speaker in American academia, she has often felt the weight of cultural and linguistic barriers. “Sometimes I feel I am not the same person in English as in Portuguese,” she admits. “I am funnier, quicker, smarter in my own language. Here, sometimes I know the answer, but don’t have the vocabulary to say it.” She also notes the structural inequities: international postdocs are excluded from certain fellowships, like the NIH F32, that can be career-defining for U.S. citizens. These hurdles make independent funding like the Alzheimer’s Association award all the more vital.
Looking forward, Suelyn hopes to transition to a faculty position in the US. While she would love to return to Brazil, she recognizes that there are fewer permanent positions available and resources are more constrained. However, faculty positions in Brazil, once secured, do offer stability and freedom from the constant pressure to write grants, a model she believes could benefit US academia as well. Wherever she lands, Suelyn’s scientific vision is clear: to uncover novel mechanisms by which neuroinflammatory pathways shape Alzheimer’s progression, and to translate this understanding into effective diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. By recognizing the reality of an embodied brain and bridging systemic physiology with cellular neurobiology, she has carved out an innovative research program. Suelyn believes that embracing the complexity of Alzheimer’s as a systemic condition will unlock new therapies that hold the promise of hope for families like hers.
Find out more about Suelyn and her lab’s research here.
Listen to Melissa’s full interview with Suelyn on May 13, 2025 below!
