Ana Hernandez, PhD
Dr. Ana Hernandez Cordero is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Centre for Heart Lung Innovation (HLI) at St. Paul’s Hospital working with Drs. Janice Leung and Don Sin. Ana holds a BSc in Biotechnology from the Universidad Latina de Panama, a MSc in Animal Sciences (animal breeding and genetics) from Colorado State University, and a PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of Aberdeen. Her PhD research focused on investigating the genomic bases of complex traits of skeletal muscle mass in humans and mice.
At UBC HLI, Ana has investigated the epigenetic bases of pulmonary diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Her main findings include: the identification of airway epigenetic disruptions and age acceleration associated with COPD and HIV, and the investigation of epigenetic clocks as potential blood biomarkers for important health outcomes. As a postdoctoral fellow, Ana has received funding to continue her research on aging in HIV (Principal investigator – BC Lung Foundation) and COPD (Co-investigator – CIHR).
Ana has received multiple awards for high achieving students, including a Fulbright scholarship for her master’s training, and an Elphinstone and IMS Studentship for her PhD training. Her work has been featured by the press and she has presented her work at multiple international conferences (10th World Congress of Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, Functional Genetics variation on the non-coding genome, American Thoracic Society), for which she has been recognized with abstracts and travel awards. Ana has been awarded a MITACS accelerate and an MSFHR Research Trainee award.