The inaugural Tufts in Translation cycle will spotlight faculty advancing new therapeutic approaches, targets, platforms, and delivery systems. Sessions will feature early-stage research across the drug discovery and design landscape, with an emphasis on translational potential and industry relevance.

Dr. Maguire’s research focuses on the underlying neurobiology of affective disorders. Her work identified positive allosteric modulators of GABA_A receptors as novel treatments for postpartum depression, contributing to the foundation of preclinical work supporting for the approval of NAS as the first treatment specifically for postpartum depression. Dr. Maguire’s research explores factors increasing vulnerability to mood disorders and the mechanisms mediating the anxiolytic and antidepressant effects of neurosteroids in an effort to understand the transition between affective states. In addition, Dr. Maguire is developing a personalized medicine approach for Psychiatry, involving a blood-based biomarker and new treatment approach with a novel target.

Dr. Maguire earned her undergraduate degrees from The University of Pittsburgh and her Ph.D. in neuroscience from The George Washington University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) under the mentorship of Dr. Istvan Mody. She has been a faculty member in the Neuroscience Department at Tufts University School of Medicine since 2010 and has been named the Kenneth and JoAnn G. Wellner Professor in Neuroscience. Dr. Maguire serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for SAGE and Ovid Therapeutics.