Yandy Gonzalez-Marrero Elected AADR National Student Research Group Officer

Yandy Gonzalez-Marrero, NSRG Councilor-elect.

University of Florida College of Dentistry DMD Class of 2019 student Yandy Gonzalez-Marrero was recently voted Councilor-elect in the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) and National Student Research Group (NSRG) 2018-19 election.

Nicholas E. Rodriguez (UT-Houston, President-elect), Shannyn Ashley Holder (UNC Chapel Hill, Vice-President-elect) and Aparna Bhat (University of New England, Secretary-elect) join Gonzalez-Marrero as Research Group Officers-elect for 2017-18, before the quartet takes over as NSRG Officers for the 2018-19 term.

As Councilor, Gonzalez Marrero will represent the NSRG at the annual AADR Council meeting, determine issues alongside other officers to present to the AADR Council, report to the NSRG on the actions of the AADR Council, be responsible for organizing the DENTSPLY/Caulk Competition, and attend every officer meeting.

The newly elected officers began their elected terms following the NSRG Student meeting at the 2017 International Association for Dental Research (IADR)/AADR/Canadian Association for Dental Research (CADR) Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California, at the end of March. The four students officially take office following the 2018 AADR/CADR Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and will serve through the 2019 IADR/AADR/CADR Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

Gonzalez-Marrero works in Dr. Luciana Shaddox’s Laboratory evaluating host immunoinflamatory responses in biofluids of individuals diagnosed with localized aggressive periodontitis, their siblings and healthy controls.

Gonzalez-Marrero graduated from the University of South Florida in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Sciences, and was selected to participate in the 2015 Summer Research Program as an incoming dental student in 2015. During his undergraduate studies, he worked as a student researcher in the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute looking at Tau pathology, specifically the effect of TNFα on pathological TDP43 and Tau in vitro. He also worked in the Department of Chemistry at USF performing docking studies and MD simulations of the catalytic domain of MMP9 protein.

A year ago, Gonzalez-Marrero won a national research award, taking first place in the 2016 DENTSPLY/Caulk Competition in the Clinical Science category for his research project, “Local and Plasma Inflammatory Biomarkers in Localized Aggressive Periodontitis” during the AADR Annual Meeting.