Xilma R. Ortiz-Gonzalez

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Xilma R. Ortiz-Gonzalez, MD, PhD

Attending Physician

Dr. Ortiz-Gonzalez is a physician-scientist specializing in pediatric neurogenetics. Her clinical work focuses on finding a unifying genetic diagnosis for children with rare neurodevelopmental disorders. Her research is informed by her patients and focuses on understanding how genetic changes, in particular those affecting mitochondrial function, cause disease so we can develop better treatments for these children in the future.

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Bio

Dr. Ortiz-Gonzalez developed an interest in mitochondrial disease and learned from the families she saw in clinic the long and difficult journey that many have endured just to obtain a genetic diagnosis. She focuses her clinical efforts in neurogenetics and continues to pursue additional research in mitochondrial biology.

Specifically, her research focuses on developing patient-derived stem cells to better understand why neurons and heart cells seem particularly affected by mitochondrial disease. Dr. Ortiz-Gonzalez is also interested in how mitochondrial dysfunction may lead to neurodegeneration in children affected with rare disorders. Her clinical work led to the co-discovery of the syndrome caused by mutations in the gene TBCK. She continues to work in trying to understand why patients with changes in this gene have neurologic symptoms, in particular why children with the Boricua mutation seem to have a neurodegenerative course. Her long-term goal is to develop new disease models that inform the cause of these rare genetic disorders, with the hope that better therapies can ultimately be developed for the affected children.

Dr. Ortiz-Gonzalez’s notable accomplishments include:

Collaborating to identify TBCK as a novel disease gene, and characterizing the systemic and neuromuscular symptoms in patients with the Boricua TBCK mutation
Identifying the new clinical syndromes due to gene mutations that usually present with epilepsy, intellectual disability and/or neuromuscular weakness in children. Some of the new disease genes identified from patients in the neurogenetics clinic: TBCK, SPTBN4, RHOBT2, MED13, GRIN2D, CHD3, SPATA5. Some of these discoveries have been translated into personalized treatments for patients
Working in human stem cell models of heart disease due to genetic defects affecting mitochondrial function (ANT1 cardiomyopathy)
Establishing that adult bone marrow cells were cabable of generating other tissues in the body (pluripotency), including neurons, at a time when this was a challenge to scientific dogma