Ena Campos-Hensley is a Research Technician in the Anastas Lab. She joined in 2024 after she completed her Bachelor’s in Biology at the University of Houston.

Since joining the lab Ena has had the opportunity to contribute to many of the lab's ongoing projects. Her work spans the many stages of a project from generating engineered cell lines and optimizing drug treatment experiments to characterizing molecular responses through molecular analyses, imaging, and in vivo studies. Whether she's designing primers, creating new cell models, optimizing doses, or processing and analyzing tissue from xenograft studies, she takes pride in tackling the necessary troubleshooting that comes with experimental research.

Ena is particularly interested in understanding how neurotransmitter signaling, histone monoaminylation, and epigenetic regulation converge to shape disease biology. She hopes to continue investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying neurological and neurodegenerative diseases and ultimately contribute to the development of new therapies for disorders of the brain.

hometown: Spring, Texas

favorite neurotransmitter: dopamine

outside the lab: Like her fellow lab mates Ena is also a cat lover. She loves spending time with her two cats Whisper and Echo. She also enjoys going to trivia with her labmates, thrifting, and eating out too much