Browse School of Medicine | Stanford Profiles

BioDr. Santoro joined Shamloo’s lab in March 2021 focusing his research on Parkinson’s disease, neuronal vulnerability, and identification of therapeutic markers in relation to α-synucleinopathies. Prior to his arrival at Stanford, he held a position as a clinical monitor at Syneos Health where he gained key knowledge needed to translate lab-based findings into clinical and commercial applications. Previously, Dr. Santoro held a postdoctoral position at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland, UK) working on amyloid-beta extracts from Alzheimer’s disease patients. During his postdoctoral research, Dr. Santoro designed and optimized a cost-effective and rapid assay for the measurement of toxic amyloid-beta species in human biofluids. In 2017, he obtained his Ph.D. (4-year program) at the University of Aberdeen on Parkinson’s disease (PD), immunology, and behavior. The major findings Ph.D. findings were the following: 1) the characterization of a small protein called HMGB1 as an inflammatory mediator in PD; 2) the motor and non-motor behavioral characterization of three neurotoxin based mouse models of PD, 3) the characterization of the innate immune response in PD through the toll-like receptor signaling pathways 4) evaluation of the effects of chronic systemic inflammation on both resident and infiltrating immune cells in the CNS. In 2012 Dr. Santoro attained his Pharm.D. in chemistry and pharmaceutical technology (5-year program) at the University of Calabria (Italy) during which he undertook an internship at the King’s College London (SGDP Centre) and worked for over a year on a rat model of stroke.