Dr. Rebekah Borup considers herself a Colorado native (even though she was actually born in Washington DC. Shhhh…. I won’t tell if you don’t tell). She loves the Colorado mountains and will always have a foundness for home.

Dr. Borup graduated from the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine in 2010 with her docotrate in Pharmacology. She loves science, and really loves the way drugs chan help us understand the cellular and molecular processes of life. Dr. Borup studied a new drug- a peptide- that inhibited an important enzyme involved in neuronal cell death. The peptide worked! It protected neurons from toxic levels of glutamate, but alas, the drug will never make it to market. The drug’s progeny might! A drug derived from the one Dr. Borup studied is showing some very promising effects in mice. Yay!

Dr. Borup spent many years as a research scientist both as a graduate student and a post-doctoral professional. One of her last research positions brought her to California where she studied the protective effects of a testosterone-like drug on the brain. While in California, Dr. Borup met the man who would one day become her husband.

Dr. Borup loved her life as a research scientist, but somewhere along the way (probably because of mentoring undergraduates and new graduate students in the lab), Dr. Borup realized that she had both a passion and a gift for teaching. In 2013, Dr. Borup “jumped ship” and begin teaching at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. She worked part-time as an adjunct professor while she and her husband went through the arduous process of adopting a child through the foster-adopt program. When the adoption finally became official, Dr. Borup continued to work part-time to help their child adjust and recover from the trauma that the child experienced prior to entering foster care.

Dr. Borup’s daughter is now entering 3nd grade, and the family is doing well, and so the time was finally right to begin teaching full-time. Dr. Borup was higher recently to teach Human Physiology (and sometimes anatomy) at Long Beach City College, and she couldn’t be happier. She’s so very excited to teach a subject she loves to a student population that she loves. Good things are on the horizon!