Valerie E. Wojna Muñiz is a Puerto Rican neurologist and professor of neurology at

University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus The University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus — Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Ciencias Médicas (UPR-RCM) in Spanish— is a public health sciences-oriented university in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is part of the Univ ...

Education

Wojna graduated from University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine (UPR) in 1984. At UPR, she completed an internship in internal medicine (1985), a residency in neurology (1988), and a fellowship in clinical neurophysiology (1990).

Career

Wojna is a professor of neurology at the University of Puerto Rico, where she researches

neurologic disorders A neurological disorder is any disorder of the nervous system. Structural, biochemical or electrical abnormalities in the brain, spinal cord or other nerves can result in a range of symptoms. Examples of symptoms include paralysis, muscle weak ...

insulin resistance Insulin resistance (IR) is a pathological condition in which cell (biology), cells fail to respond normally to the hormone insulin. Insulin is a hormone that facilitates the transport of glucose from blood into cells, thereby reducing blood gluco ...

, and

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND). With immunologist Loyda M. Meléndez, Wojna used

proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

to research the causes of HAND. Wojna has also combined some of her interests; for example with collaborators she has investigated insulin resistance in HIV patients, and she is part of a study that looks for a "comparison between the cognitive damage caused by the virus between women and men in Puerto Rico." Her research has documented the neurocognitive damage resulting from chronic infections traced to HIV in Puerto Rican women, and the local scientific community has collaborated with researchers at the

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

looking for effective new drugs to help patients.

"The scientific mission of these laboratories led by Dr. Wojna is to provide a new medical alternative that avoids the effects of chronic infection on the neurocognitive health of this population.

In addition to preventing chronic infections that can impact the neurocognitive health of Puerto Rican women, Wojna has also researched the impact of

sex hormone Sex hormones, also known as sex steroids, gonadocorticoids and gonadal steroids, are steroid hormones that interact with vertebrate steroid hormone receptors. The sex hormones include the androgens, estrogens, and progestogens. Their effects ar ...

s and

oxidative stress Oxidative stress reflects an imbalance between the systemic manifestation of reactive oxygen species and a biological system's ability to readily Detoxification, detoxify the reactive intermediates or to repair the resulting damage. Disturbances ...

. In 2001, she was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Neurology The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) is a professional society representing over 38,000 neurologists and neuroscientists. As a medical specialty society it was established in 1948 by A.B. Baker of the University of Minnesota to advance the ar ...

Selected publications

* Wojna, V., Skolasky, R. L., Hechavarría, R., Mayo, R., Selnes, O., McArthur, J. C., ... & Nath, A. (2006). Prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus-associated cognitive impairment in a group of Hispanic women at risk for neurological impairment. ''Journal of neurovirology'', ''12''(5), 356-364. * Wojna, V., Robles, L., Skolasky, R. L., Mayo, R., Selnes, O., de la Torre, T., ... & Lasalde-Dominicci, J. (2007). Associations of cigarette smoking with viral immune and cognitive function in human immunodeficiency virus-seropositive women. ''Journal of neurovirology'', ''13''(6), 561-568. * Gerena, Y., Skolasky, R. L., Velez, J. M., Toro-Nieves, D., Mayo, R., Nath, A., & Wojna, V. (2012). Soluble and cell-associated insulin receptor dysfunction correlates with severity of HAND in HIV-infected women. ''PLoS One'', ''7''(5), e37358. * Morales, D., Acevedo, S. F., Skolasky, R. L., Hechavarria, R., Santiago, S., De La Torre, T., ... & Wojna, V. (2012). Translational spatial task and its relationship to HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders and apolipoprotein E in HIV-seropositive women. ''Journal of neurovirology'', ''18''(6), 488-502. * Cantres-Rosario, Y., Plaud-Valentín, M., Gerena, Y., Skolasky, R. L., Wojna, V., & Meléndez, L. M. (2013). Cathepsin B and cystatin B in HIV-seropositive women are associated with infection and HIV-1-associated neurocognitive disorders. ''AIDS'', ''27''(3), 347. * Victorson, D., Cavazos, J. E., Holmes, G. L., Reder, A. T., Wojna, V., Nowinski, C., ... & Cella, D. (2014). Validity of the Neurology Quality-of-Life (Neuro-QoL) measurement system in adult epilepsy. ''Epilepsy & Behavior'', ''31'', 77-84.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wojna, Valerie Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Puerto Rican women Puerto Rican women physicians American neurologists Women neurologists 21st-century American women physicians 21st-century American physicians 21st-century Puerto Rican physicians University of Puerto Rico alumni University of Puerto Rico faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Neurology University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine alumni