Meet the team
Within the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Research Lab at Mayo Clinic, two teams work in tandem to achieve Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa's research goals:
- Basic Neurosurgery Research team. This team performs clinically relevant translational experiments in the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Research Lab using tissues directly obtained from patients in the operating room.
- Clinical Neurosurgery team. This team is responsible for all aspects of patient care, including treating patients, evaluating outcomes and performing clinical trials. The team collaborates closely with the Basic Neurosurgery Research team to develop new and effective therapies for devastating cancers of the brain and spine.
Team bios
Aleeshba N. Basil
Senior Clinical Research Coordinator
Clinical Neurosurgery Team
Basil joined Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa's team in fall 2020 as a clinical research coordinator. In this role, she manages the Human Tissue Bank, which serves to create a bridge between the operating room and the basic research lab using valuable human tissue donations.
Basil obtained her Bachelor of Science in biomedical sciences with honors from the University of South Florida During her time at the University of South Florida, Basil was a researcher in the Biophysics Department. For her honors thesis, she explored the concept of protein aggregation in neurodegenerative diseases and cataracts using spectroscopy and imaging techniques. She also worked at University of South Florida Health Morsani College of Medicine in association with the Academic Affairs and Research departments to plan medical education events and coordinate the scholarly concentrations program.
Before joining Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa's team at Mayo Clinic, Basil served on a project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the University of Florida Health Jacksonville. Her role for the project, which was designed to increase access to telemedicine for people living with HIV, involved assisting with inpatient and healthcare professional education and recruitment, medical marketing and outreach, and ensuring institutional and federal institutional review board compliance.
Basil is passionate about increasing the accessibility of medical care and support services for underserved patients. She hopes to continue to serve these populations at Mayo Clinic.
Mieu M. Brooks
Senior Research Technologist
Basic Neurosurgery Research Team
Brooks joined Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa's team in August 2019 as a lab manager and research technician. Her responsibilities include lab upkeep, logistics, team management, harvest of intraoperative tissue samples and establishment of novel brain cancer cell lines. As a technician, she characterizes primary brain tumor cells derived from patients with glioblastoma and studies how these cell lines can be used to create preclinical animal models. She also is studying how mesenchymal stem cells can be used as treatment vehicles to combat brain cancer.
Brooks received her Bachelor of Science in biological sciences with a focus in microbiology and minor in chemistry in 2010. She received much of her training during her time at UT Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Florida under the direction of Hongtao Yu, Ph.D., and Benoit I. Giasson, Ph.D., respectively. She learned how to handle, maintain and conduct investigations on mouse models for various neurodegenerative diseases.
Over the past three years, she has furthered her training at Mayo Clinic's Florida campus under the direction of Rosa Rademakers, Ph.D. She contributed to the study of TMEM106B as a potential protective variant against frontotemporal lobar degeneration in progranulin mutation carriers.
Apart from science, Brooks enjoys rock climbing, running and cooking.
Beatriz I. Fernandez Gil, Ph.D.
Research Associate and Instructor of Neurosurgery
Basic Neurosurgery Research Team
Dr. Fernandez Gil's research focuses on evaluating the effects of melatonin on glioblastoma cells and the implication of melatonin in mitochondrial metabolism as a synergetic drug to improve glioblastoma treatments.
Dr. Fernandez Gil is a biologist holding a master's degree in genetics and evolution. She completed her doctorate in biomedicine at the Biomedical Research Centre at the University of Granada in Spain under the direction of Germaine Escames, Ph.D. Her thesis focuses on the synergistic effects of high melatonin concentrations with radiotherapy and chemotherapy in head and neck cancer.
As part of her doctoral program, Dr. Fernandez Gil joined Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa's team in March 2017 as a three-month visiting graduate student. Since January 2018, she has continued with this work as a special project associate with the goal of eventually translating her findings into clinical approaches.
She also is a passionate student of forensic science and evolution.
Paula Schiapparelli, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery
Basic Neurosurgery Research Team
Dr. Schiapparelli's research focuses on understanding how glioblastoma cells migrate and invade the human brain. Her main project is to describe how the NKCC1 protein modulates the actin cytoskeleton to regulate cell shape, spreading and migration in glioblastoma.
Dr. Schiapparelli received her Bachelor of Science in biology and biochemistry and her doctorate in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. Her doctoral research focused on the role of sonic hedgehog signaling alterations in pediatric tumors such as neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma.
After continuing her training as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University under the mentorship of Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa, Dr. Schiapparelli joined Mayo Clinic in 2016.
Paola Suarez Meade, M.D.
Research Fellow
Basic Neurosurgery Research Team
In June 2020, Dr. Suarez Meade earned her medical degree from Anahuac University in Mexico City, Mexico, graduating with honors in research. She spent her two last years of medical training at Médica Sur Hospital, a hospital that is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network. She first joined Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa's team in 2016. Since then, she has made several research contributions to the field of neurosurgery.
Dr. Suarez Meade's previous work was focused on defining the immune response to spinal cord injury and treatment of stroke, traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury with regenerative medicine. As a research trainee in the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Lab, Dr. Suarez Meade was involved in projects focused on the description of the pathophysiology and treatment of glioblastoma, as well as the development of in vivo animal models of breast, lung and melanoma metastases to the central nervous system. Her scientific merits include receiving the Trainee Professional Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience in 2018 and a research recognition from Anahuac University in 2019.
As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Suarez Meade's research focuses on preclinical studies that should lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms of glioblastoma invasiveness. She helps establish primary glioblastoma and chordoma cell cultures and cell line characterization in the lab. She is investigating the use of a microfluidic invasion network device to predict glioblastoma prognosis and response to treatment. Also, she is investigating the spatial migration characteristics of glioblastoma from patient-derived cell lines. Dr. Suarez-Meade is working to establish a human-on-human glioblastoma organotypic invasion model.
In the clinical setting, Dr. Suarez Meade's research focuses on awake brain surgery and mapping. She also is an active volunteer of the nonprofit foundation Mission:BRAIN, where she builds bridges with international partners, organizes outreach mission trips, conducts fundraising events and international student chapters from more than 35 universities around the globe.