Dr. Toral was born and raised in Libertyville, Illinois, along with his two younger siblings. He attended Miami University of Ohio for his undergraduate education, where he studied Zoology and Neuroscience, solidifying his passion for medicine and academic research. Immediately after graduation, he was accepted into the NIH Medical Scientist Training Program (M.D., Ph.D.) at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. During the Ph.D. portion of his training, Dr. Toral moved with his thesis lab to Stanford University in California, where he completed the final years of his scientific training before returning to Iowa City to complete his remaining M.D. coursework. During his combined doctoral training, he further refined his passion for medicine and research to focus on ophthalmology. His work interests include treatment of intraocular inflammation and retinal disease, as well as using research to improve molecular diagnostics and therapeutics for eye disease. Apart from work, Dr. Toral enjoys hiking and the outdoors, travel, reading, writing, sports and athletics, music, and videogames.
Hometown:
Libertyville, Illinois
Education:
Undergraduate education: Miami University of Ohio
Medical School: University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine
Internship: University of Washington, Internal Medicine, 2022
Personal Interests:
Hiking and the outdoors, travel, reading, writing, sports and athletics, music, videogames
Research Interests:
Understanding and controlling intraocular inflammation, applying next-generation genetic sequencing technologies to improve medical diagnostics and therapeutics, & genetic editing for treatment of inherited disease
Clinical Interests:
Inherited eye disease, uveitis, medical and surgical correction of retinal disease
Publications:
Toral MA, Charlesworth CT, Ng B, Chemudupati T, Homma S, Nakauchi H, Bassuk AG, Porteus MH, Mahajan VB. Investigation of Cas9 antibodies in the human eye. Nature Communications. 2022; 13(1):1053. PubMed PMID: 35217666.
Toral MA*, Cani AK*, Balikov DA*, Betz BL, Hu K, Liu C, Prifti MV, Chinnaiyan AM, Tomlins SA, Mahajan VB, Rao RC. Genomic analysis of a case of bilateral T cell vitreoretinal lymphoma (VRL) reveals copy number alterations. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2021; 22(11): 6099. PMID: 34198843. (*co-first authors).
Velez, G, Nguyen HV, Chumudupati T, Ludwig CA, Toral M, Reddy S, Mruthyunjaya P, Mahajan VB. Liquid biopsy proteomics of uveal melanoma reveals biomarkers associated with metastatic risk. Molecular Cancer. 2021; 20(1): 39. PMID: 33627107.
