Dr. Laura Ibanez is an assistant professor at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) in Saint Louis with a join appointment at the departments of psychiatry and neurology. She is also part of the NeuroGenomics and Informatics Center at that institution. Dr. Ibanez obtained her PhD at the University of Barcelona (Spain) with honors and moved to Washington University for her postdoctoral training on genome-wide association analyses and other high-throughput techniques. She joined the faculty at WUSM in 2020. Her research interests are focused on understanding the role of RNA species (messenger RNAs, small RNAs and circular RNAs) in the development and progression of neurodegenerative diseases. Additionally, she is interested in the development of noninvasive diagnostic techniques using RNA species from plasma and blood, specially those that facilitate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.