Journal of Sports Medicine & Doping Studies

Virginia Espina

Biography

Virginia (Ginny) Espina, MS, MT(ASCP) is a Research Assistant Professor at George Mason University (Manassas, Virginia, USA) in the Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine. She is the former Manager of the Laser Capture Microdissection Core facility at the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute, within the Laboratory of Pathology and the NCI-FDA Clinical Proteomics Program.

In varying degrees, she has been involved in a number of functional proteomics-based research projects and clinical trials George Mason University and at the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute. The studies performed by Ms. Espina have involved a wide spectrum of proteomic approaches. They have included classical western blotting, laser capture microdissection and reverse phase protein microarrays that yielded elucidation of phosphorylation specific kinase events in the tumor-host microenvironment of breast, lung and ovarian cancer. Ms. Espina’s responsibilities include lab management as well as specific projects involving the identification and procurement of cells from biopsies/buffy coat preparations received from a variety of translational research studies, with analysis and interpretation of reverse phase protein microarray data.

She has extensive clinical laboratory experience, including clinical chemistry and Blood Bank.  Her thorough knowledge of clinical quality control and quality assurance issues and regulations compliment her clinical research initiatives, which include phosphoprotein stability, effects of therapy on protein cell signaling pathways, and live cell/tissue microdissection.

She is an author of more than 45 peer-reviewed papers in the areas of protein microarray technology and translational medicine

Research Interest

Sports Medicine, Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine