Adam Rossano MD, PhD
Adam Rossano MD, PhD
I completed my B.S. in Neuroscience and B.A. in Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin in 2007, at which point I moved to San Antonio and joined the University of Texas Health Science Center as an MD/PhD student. My PhD focused on quantifiable cellular measurements of activity-dependent calcium and pH dynamics in Drosophila (fruit fly) motor nerve terminals. Under the mentorship of Dr. Gregory Macleod I described integration of calcium, pH, and glutamate handling in glutamatergic presynaptic terminals and contributed to modelling mitochondrial support of neurotransmission. Upon graduation in 2015 I entered the lab of Dr. Michael Romero in the Department of Physiology and Biomedical engineering at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. I applied cellular imaging techniques to explore functional consequences of pathogenic human mutations in the electrogenic sodium bicarbonate transporter (NBCe1) while simultaneously acquiring additional expertise in cellular acid/base physiology and ion transporter biophysics. I then returned to clinical training and completed a general medicine internship and psychiatry residency at Johns Hopkins between 2017 and 2021. My present clinical interest is in adults with neurodevelopmental and psychotic disorders and in 2021 I joined CHOP and Penn Medicine in the labs of Drs. Stewart Anderson and Douglas Coulter. I aim to apply my previous experience in subcellular live imaging and physiology to exploration of how known deficits in mitochondrial biogenesis contribute to dysfunctional synaptic plasticity and glutamatergic neurotransmission in a model of programmed induced pluripotent stem cell (IPSC)-derived excitatory forebrain neurons generated from individuals with neurodevelopmental atypicality and psychosis.