Orestes Quesada, PhD

Primary Institution:
University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus
Department:
Department of Physical Sciences, Department of Chemistry
Position(s):
Full Professor
Current SEPA Project
  • University of Puerto Rico STEM Asthma Awareness Program
    5R25GM137212-02 : 08/10/2021 - 07/31/2026

  • Dr. Quesada received his PhD in biochemistry with a minor in analytical chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. Currently he is a full professor at the Physical Sciences Department, College of General Studies and the Department of Chemistry, Natural Sciences College at the University of Puerto Rico. Also, Quesada has been the Coordinator in charge of the NIH Research Initiative for Scientific (RISE) Program and NIH Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC U·STAR) Program for the past 21 years. His efforts to increase the number of students who become interested and participate in productive research experiences in the biomedical area has helped to the success rate of the UPR-RISE and UPR-MARC ex-trainees, which has been over 92% in the past two decades. For the past 15 years Dr. Quesada has been in charge of the Seminar Series in the Frontiers of Cellular, Molecular and Chemical Biology, seminar that has been institutionalized, meeting every Friday during the academic year. Furthermore, Dr. Quesada is an active researcher in the field of lipidomics, enzymology and protein membrane structure and function with a vast experience in the application of GC, GC-MS and HPLC-MSMS, and MALDI Tof for the analysis of lipid and proteins. Moreover, he has experience in protein crystal diffraction and have been a user of the Advance Photon Source sector 23-ID at Argonne National Laboratories for the past 10 years. In addition to the mentorship of the MARC and RISE students, Dr. Quesada has a successful wide record mentoring undergraduate and graduate student, (almost 100 students), working on his research projects.