Detailed Biography:

Ligia Toro is a physiologist and biophysicist who joined UCLA School of Medicine in 1994 as member of the department of Anesthesiology. She became a full professor in 2000. Dr. Toro was trained in Mexico where she received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Universidad IberoAmericana, a M.S. degree in Biochemistry from Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa and a Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from Centro de Investigacion y Estudios Avanzados del IPN. In 1987, she moved to Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX for postdoctoral training. In 1990, she was promoted to Assistant Professor in the same institution. Her postdoctoral work was on ion channel biophysics and metabolic regulation. At present, Dr. Toro is Professor of the Department of Anesthesiology and the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, and is member of the Brain Research Institute and of the Cardiovascular Research Laboratory. She participates on several training grants and cardiovascular research programs at UCLA. She has served as regular member of NIH study sections, in the council and executive board of the Biophysical Society, and has chaired the International Relations Committee of the Biophysical Society and the US National Committee for the International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics. In 2001, she became Fellow of the American Heart Association and in 2009, she was designated Dorothy and Leonard Straus Scholar at UCLA.