Nancy Hurtado-Ziola, PhD (Otomi)

Board Position

Board Member, 2011–2013, Secretary (2011), Treasurer (2012-13)

Committee Membership

 Executive Committee, Finance Committee, Chapters Committee, Bylaws Committee

Institutional Affiliation

Sialix, Inc

Position

Senior Research Scientist in Glycobiology

Website http://www.sialix.com

Field

Biology

Specialization

 Sialic acid glycobiology with a focus on the non-human sialic acid N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc) on human health and disease.

Biography

Within months of receiving a Doctorate degree in Biomedical Science from the UCSD School of Medicine, Dr. Hurtado-Ziola was employed at a nascent biotechnology company, Gc-Free, Inc., which is now known as Sialix, Inc.  She was the first full-time paid employee at Gc-Free, Inc., and due in part to her efforts, the company has grown since its 2007 inception and now employs more than 10 employees.  At Sialix, she is a Senior Research Scientist and Principle Investigator whose research focuses on the role that Neu5Gc, a non-human sialic acid, plays in human health and disease.  She has been instrumental in designing and producing a sialic acid glycan microarray that has been used to identify glycan cancer biomarkers. She is the Principle Investigator (PI) on two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards, one from NCI (Glycan Arrays for Biomarker Discovery), and another from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (N-glycolylneuraminic Acid in the Pathogenesis and Progression of Rheumatoid Arthritis).  She was co-PI on an NIGMS Small Business Technology Transfer grant, The Detection of Non-Human Sialic Acid in Biotherapeutic Applications.  She has co-authored ten papers, has a review in press and is currently writing a manuscript about sialic acid binding proteins in humans and non-human primates. 

Dr. Hurtado-Ziola received a B.S. in Biology with a Minor in Biotechnology from California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) where she was a Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) scholar.  While at CSUF, she developed an interest in biomedical science policy.  Having transferred from a Community College to CSUF she feels that Community Colleges like Rio Hondo in Whittier, CA, made it possible to earn an advanced degree.   As a single parent raising a son, she was not yet ready for the University setting and felt that the Community College path was perfect for her situation.  She transferred from Community College to CSUF and finally to UCSD with a strong academic foundation that has served her well in the ensuing years. 

Extramural summer research is another important undergraduate activity that helped make Dr. Hurtado-Ziola an attractive candidate for graduate school.  She conducted summer research at UC Davis on a transgenic plant with the intent to make it able to take up a biologically unavailable nitrogen source and process it into a bioavailable form. One year later she was chosen as a Minority International Research Training (MIRT) scholar.  She worked in an historic Cambridge University biochemistry laboratory, where she studied the role of glycans in platelet activation and atherosclerosis.

Dr. Hurtado-Ziola's was still a CUSF undergraduate in 1996 when she attended her first professional meeting in San Francisco, CA.  It was a joint meeting between the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) and the International Congress of Cell Biology (ICCB).  The ASCB/ICCB meeting, with attendance was well over 10,000 and the largest ASCB meeting to date, was perceived as impersonal and left her with a feeling of bewilderment.  Two years later, her CSUF MARC mentors encouraged her to attend the 1998 SACNAS meeting in Washington, D.C.  With great hesitation she decided to attend this scientific meeting prepared to have the same type of experience as the previous scientific meeting.  However, she was quite pleased because she felt that she had found her scientific home and family.  She saw other brown-faced scientists like herself freely sharing their excellent science while providing academic and emotional support.  Dr. Hurtado-Ziola attributes much of her academic success to the mentoring she received at the SACNAS National Conferences.

In addition to SACNAS, Dr. Hurtado-Ziola is a member of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Society for Glycobiology, the Association for Women in Science (AWIS), and the International Society for Analytical Cytology (ISAC).  Dr. Hurtado-Ziola was part of the Inaugural 2009 SACNAS/AAAS Leadership Institute, which is held each summer in Washington, D.C.  In an effort to give back to the SACNAS membership for the opportunity to attend the Leadership Institute, Dr. Hurtado-Ziola ran for and was elected to the SACNAS Board of Directors.  She would like to contribute to SACNAS in a way that will help students find they voice as scientists through the benefits offered by this organization recognized for its excellence in the mentoring of young underrepresented minority scientists.

Contact & Elections Information

To contact the SACNAS Board of Directors email: info@sacnas.org (please include “Board of Directors” in the subject line). For information regarding participation in the leadership of the organization, future SACNAS elections, and nominations procedures, see the elections page.

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