Dr. Nataliya Chorna

Assistant Professor
Dr. Nataliya Chorna

Contact Info

  • nataliya.chorna@upr.edu
  • Director PR-INBRE Metabolomics Research Core,
    Lab A632 6th Floor
    University of Puerto Rico​
    Medical Sciences Campus
    San Juan, PR 00935
  • Tel (787) 758-2525 ext 1640

    Fax (787)764-8209

Education

  • Doctorate in Biology with a specialty in Microbiology, 1987
    National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine
  • MS Master Degree in Biochemistry, 1979
    Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine

PR-INBRE Metabolomics Research Core

As the director of the PR-INBRE-Metabolomics Research Core, I provide extensive services in metabolomics for investigators and students in Puerto Rico and beyond, including methods development, scientific seminars, and training workshops.

Research Interests

The long-term goal of my research is to understand how shifts within metabolic pathways in response to changes in lifestyle contribute to human health and disease. I apply integrated multi-omics approaches to study host-microbiome/metabolome interaction to develop a basis for new diagnostic aids and therapeutic interventions.

RR-INBRE Metabolomics Research Core (MRC) was established by the Puerto Rico IDeA Network Biomedical Research Excellence (PRINBRE) in the fall of 2011 and Dr. Nataliya Chorna has been serving as the core director since its establishment. PRINBRE is a program inspired by the National Institutes of Health Institutional Developmental Awards: IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE). MRC is the only one of its kind in Puerto Rico and has significantly enhanced the competitiveness of biomedical researchers at Puerto Rico academic institutions. The MRC is located at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Puerto Rico, Medical Science Campus. The MRC is equipped with modern instrumentation including Agilent Seahorse XF96 Metabolic scanner and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry instrumentation such as single quadrupole GC/MS QP2010 and triple quadrupole GC/MS/MS TQ8050 (Shimadzu Inc) equipped with two comprehensive databases such as the NIST14/2014/EPA/NIH database and 11th edition of Willy Registry database that contains a fully evaluated collection of electron ionization (EI) mass spectra of over 267,376 and 700,000 chemical compounds correspondently, as well as a small appliances for metabolites extraction and derivatization. As a coordinator of the facility, Dr. Chorna provides research and training support to the Puerto Rico biomedical research community with the aim to address the needs for increasing metabolomics research capacity by (1) offering specialized supporting service for an assay development for specific metabolites identification; (2) providing training and knowledge dissemination among researchers, undergraduate and graduate students in Puerto Rico, and (3) support established and new collaborations that exploit metabolomics approaches to move basic and clinical research towards translational goals. The MRC long term goal is to increase the number of investigators cross-trained in metabolomics, bioinformatics analysis, biochemistry, and physiology providing the access to modern state-of-the-art analytical tools for large-scale metabolic profiling and services related to metabolomics research to academia, government and industry in Puerto Rico and abroad.

TRAINING WORKSHOPS AND SEMINARS

EFFECTS OF RUNNING EXERCISE ON THE REGULATION OF TRYPTOPHAN METABOLISM ALONG THE MICROBIOTA-GUT-BRAIN AXIS

This is a pilot project funded by the Deanship for Research University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico. The main objective of this application is to address the recent interest by basic and clinical studies on tryptophan metabolism, which is directly or indirectly controlled by the gut microbiota. The gut microbial influence on tryptophan metabolism emerges as an important driving force at multiple levels of the gut-brain axis contributing to brain health. This proposal poses to address the effects of running exercise using mice model on diversification of gut microbiota and its endogenous capacity to boost tryptophan metabolism in the brain via the serotonin pathway and provide directions toward designing microbiome/metabolome-based diagnostics and therapeutic approaches for the central nervous system disorders.

HIGH-RESOLUTION META-OMICS APPROACHES TO STUDY CERVICAL HPV INFECTIONS FOR CANCER PREVENTION

Collaborative project with Filipa Godoy Vitorino, PhD, UPR-MSC. In this project we integrate next-generation sequencing data with ecology, physiology, metagenomics, metabolomics and bioinformatics to evaluate the metabolic capacity, and activity of the human microbiome among Puerto Rican women diagnosed with human papillomavirus (HPV) infections and to predict the occurrence of metabolic abnormalities that could lead to cervical cancer development (PMC7235793; PMC7022855; PMC6310238). The long-term goal of this project is to predict the microbiome activity and dynamics for development of new pharmaceutic strategies directed on modification the microbiome and its metabolic phenotype in health and disease.

DISCOVERY OF THE BIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF MECHANOSENSOR MTL1P OF SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE THROUGH COMPREHENSIVE OMICS ANALYSIS

Collaborative project with Jose Rodriguez Medina, PhD, UPR-MSC. We identify a novel role for mechanosensor Mtl1p of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in complex cellular regulatory mechanisms required to maintain cellular homeostasis using integrative multi-omics analysis of the cellular transcriptome, proteome, metabolome and functional enrichment analyses (PMC8016984).

MEET THE TEAM

PR-INBRE MRC

RR-INBRE Metabolomics Research Core (MRC) was established by the Puerto Rico IDeA Network Biomedical Research Excellence (PRINBRE) in the fall of 2011 and Dr. Nataliya Chorna has been serving as the core director since its establishment. PRINBRE is a program inspired by the National Institutes of Health Institutional Developmental Awards: IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE). MRC is the only one of its kind in Puerto Rico and has significantly enhanced the competitiveness of biomedical researchers at Puerto Rico academic institutions. The MRC is located at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Puerto Rico, Medical Science Campus. The MRC is equipped with modern instrumentation including Agilent Seahorse XF96 Metabolic scanner and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry instrumentation such as single quadrupole GC/MS QP2010 and triple quadrupole GC/MS/MS TQ8050 (Shimadzu Inc) equipped with two comprehensive databases such as the NIST14/2014/EPA/NIH database and 11th edition of Willy Registry database that contains a fully evaluated collection of electron ionization (EI) mass spectra of over 267,376 and 700,000 chemical compounds correspondently, as well as a small appliances for metabolites extraction and derivatization. As a coordinator of the facility, Dr. Chorna provides research and training support to the Puerto Rico biomedical research community with the aim to address the needs for increasing metabolomics research capacity by (1) offering specialized supporting service for an assay development for specific metabolites identification; (2) providing training and knowledge dissemination among researchers, undergraduate and graduate students in Puerto Rico, and (3) support established and new collaborations that exploit metabolomics approaches to move basic and clinical research towards translational goals. The MRC long term goal is to increase the number of investigators cross-trained in metabolomics, bioinformatics analysis, biochemistry, and physiology providing the access to modern state-of-the-art analytical tools for large-scale metabolic profiling and services related to metabolomics research to academia, government and industry in Puerto Rico and abroad.

TRAINING WORKSHOPS AND SEMINARS

PROJECTS

EFFECTS OF RUNNING EXERCISE ON THE REGULATION OF TRYPTOPHAN METABOLISM ALONG THE MICROBIOTA-GUT-BRAIN AXIS

This is a pilot project funded by the Deanship for Research University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico. The main objective of this application is to address the recent interest by basic and clinical studies on tryptophan metabolism, which is directly or indirectly controlled by the gut microbiota. The gut microbial influence on tryptophan metabolism emerges as an important driving force at multiple levels of the gut-brain axis contributing to brain health. This proposal poses to address the effects of running exercise using mice model on diversification of gut microbiota and its endogenous capacity to boost tryptophan metabolism in the brain via the serotonin pathway and provide directions toward designing microbiome/metabolome-based diagnostics and therapeutic approaches for the central nervous system disorders.

HIGH-RESOLUTION META-OMICS APPROACHES TO STUDY CERVICAL HPV INFECTIONS FOR CANCER PREVENTION

Collaborative project with Filipa Godoy Vitorino, PhD, UPR-MSC. In this project we integrate next-generation sequencing data with ecology, physiology, metagenomics, metabolomics and bioinformatics to evaluate the metabolic capacity, and activity of the human microbiome among Puerto Rican women diagnosed with human papillomavirus (HPV) infections and to predict the occurrence of metabolic abnormalities that could lead to cervical cancer development (PMC7235793; PMC7022855; PMC6310238). The long-term goal of this project is to predict the microbiome activity and dynamics for development of new pharmaceutic strategies directed on modification the microbiome and its metabolic phenotype in health and disease.

DISCOVERY OF THE BIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF MECHANOSENSOR MTL1P OF SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE THROUGH COMPREHENSIVE OMICS ANALYSIS

Collaborative project with Jose Rodriguez Medina, PhD, UPR-MSC. We identify a novel role for mechanosensor Mtl1p of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in complex cellular regulatory mechanisms required to maintain cellular homeostasis using integrative multi-omics analysis of the cellular transcriptome, proteome, metabolome and functional enrichment analyses (PMC8016984).

CHORNA LAB

MEET THE TEAM

PUBLICATIONS