Lucia Santacruz PhD

Dr. Santacruz completed her undergraduate degree in Microbiology, followed by graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine, where she earned a PhD in Physiology. She then went on to complete postdoctoral fellowships at the Cardiovascular Research Laboratory at UCLA, and at the Department of Biophysics and Molecular Physiology, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. In 2004 she joined the faculty in the Surgery Department at Duke University Medical Center (Durham, North Carolina) where she led a multidisciplinary research team working on the characterization of molecular aspects of muscle energy metabolism, and their role in the pathogenesis of cardiac failure. From 2013 until 2016, Dr. Santacruz continued her research at the University of Texas Medical Branch (Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) in Galveston (Texas), while also serving as a Visiting Professor at the Department of Natural Sciences at BSU. In the fall of 2016, she joined the faculty at the Natural Sciences Department, where she combines her passion for teaching, mentoring, and fostering the development of all aspects of STEM education and biomedical research with an active collaborative research program.

Dr. Santacruz’s main research interests are the mechanisms of transport across biological membranes. In particular, she is interested in the creatine transporter protein, a membrane protein that is a critical element for healthy cellular energy metabolism in muscle and neuronal cells. Her research work in this area is aimed at the elucidation of the molecular basis of creatine transporter regulation, including cellular signaling cascades and analysis of the structure-function relationships of the transporter protein itself. Alterations in creatine transporter capacity are linked to abnormal cardiac function and inherited intellectual disabilities in males. An understanding of creatine transport function and regulation is essential to developing effective treatments for these maladies.