Dr. Puntel joined the Board of Governors Gene Therapy Research Institute in October 2002. She will develop a novel glutless adenovirus vector for the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD).
An ideal vector for gene therapy is one that expresses high levels of the desired therapeutical transgene and therefore lower amounts of vector are needed to achieve the desired phenotype reversion. This in turn prevents toxic side effects. Dr. Puntel is aiming to combine strong promoters and post-transcriptional regulatory elements in order to achieve high levels of transgene expression for the treatment of PD, which will allow us to diminish the dose of viral vector needed to revert the symptoms in PD. The therapeutic transgene selected for developing a gene therapeutic is the Glial-derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF), a potent dopaminergic (DA) trophic factor that ameliorates the behavioural and neuro-anatomical consequences of lesioning DA neurons in rodent and primate models of PD.
Dr. Puntel will develop a novel adenovirus vector for the delivery of GDNF to damaged tissues of the brain PD in a pre-clinical model in order to evaluate the therapeutical effect of the new vector.
Dr. Puntel received her bachelor's degree at the Exact and Natural Sciences Faculty, University of Buenos Aires. Dr. Puntel earned her doctorate after being awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the National Council for Research in Sciences and Technology, Argentina. Dr. Puntel conducted her doctorate studies at the National Institute of Agronomical Technology in Buenos Aires, where she developed a marker vaccine against bovine herpesvirus type 1, which was the first recombinant vaccine developed for the animal health in Argentina.
