Faculty Member
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
College of Life Science
University of California, Los Angeles
8570 Pritzker Hall
502 Portola Plaza,
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Publications
Faculty Member
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
College of Life Science
University of California, Los Angeles
8570 Pritzker Hall
502 Portola Plaza,
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Publications
Faculty Member
Professor in Residence
Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences
David Geffen School of Medicine
University of California, Los Angeles
Neuroscience Research Building
635 Charles E. Young Dr S, Box 957332
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Biography
Dr. Andrews is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Andrews received her B.S. in Chemistry from the Pennsylvania State University and earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry as a U.S. Department of Education Fellow working at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she was later a postdoctoral fellow and senior staff fellow. At the NIMH, Andrews and her mentor, Dr. Dennis Murphy, discovered and characterized a novel serotonin neurotoxin, 2’-NH2-MPTP. Dr. Andrews was also instrumental in early studies on serotonin transporter-deficient mice. Andrews is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, American Chemical Society, and Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry. She has been the recipient of an NIH Fellows Award for Research Excellence, an Eli Lilly Outstanding Young Analytical Chemist Award, an American Parkinson’s Disease Association Research Award, and a Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD) Independent Investigator Award. She is a fellow of the Collegium Internationale Neuropsychopharmacologicum and a Serotonin Club elected councilor. Recently, Dr. Andrews became Associate Editor for ACS Chemical Neuroscience.
At UCLA, Andrews leads efforts in basic and translational research on anxiety and depression, and at the nexus of nanoscience and neuroscience. Andrews’ interdisciplinary research team of neuroscientists, biologists, chemists, and engineers focuses on understanding how the serotonin system and particularly, the serotonin transporter, modulate neurotransmission to influence complex behaviors including anxiety, mood, stress responsiveness, and learning and memory. Genetic and pharmacologic mouse models and human genetic variants are studied to understand the molecular basis of serotonin system function associated with the etiology and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders. Key proteins (e.g., brain-derived neurotrophic factor) and neuronal architectures regulated by serotonin are also investigated. Nanomaterials are designed for fundamental studies on neurotransmitter recognition by native and nonnative binding partners (aptamers) and for the development of in vivo nanobiosensors and functionally directed proteomics.
Professor Harris directs NEIL lab with over 25 years of experience with rodent CNS injury models and in particular using MRI and PET to assess structure and function. He received his B.Sc. in Biology/Neuroscience from University of Portsmouth in 1988, and his Ph.D. in Physiology from King’s College London in 1991. Dr. Harris’s early focus of research addressed the question of optimal timing for intervention after the diagnosis of infantile hydrocephalus. Prior to joining University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Dr. Harris received training in multimodality imaging techniques, including PET, structural MRI, fMRI, DTI, and Glucose/blood-flow autoradiography at Kings college University of London, University of Florida McKnight Brain Institute, the Royal College of Surgeons unit of Biophysics in the Institute of Child Health, and University of Cambridge Department of Neurosurgery. Subsequently, Dr. Harris conducted studies to address forebrain ischemic stroke looking at the potential use of non-invasive biomarkers to determine salvageable areas of brain. The studies were cited amongst primary reported findings on biophysical mechanism of the change in water diffusion after stroke. Dr. Harris currently resides as Professor in Residence of UCLA Department of Neurosurgery where he primarily conducts investigations on Traumatic Brain Injury and is the scientific director of UCLA 7T animal imaging core.