SLB Trainee Awardees

Join us in welcoming these new members of SLB...

Laura Elena Carreto Binaghi

I am a medical doctor, specialist in Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases; I started working on Histoplasmosis research as an undergraduate student. I have published some articles within a Research Group at “Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México” (UNAM), and I am about to finish a Ph.D. Now I work as a researcher in the Microbiology Department at “Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias Ismael Cosío Villegas” (INER), currently developing research on tuberculosis and other bacteria.

Carolina Isabel Rojas Perez

Second year Ph.D. student in the area of applied biomedicine, Doctorate program of Dental Sciences University of Chile, graduated from Dentistry on 2018. My research is focused on the characterization of mucosal immune response of periodontal tissues in health and disease, emphasizing in Periodontitis. We study Regulatory T lymphocyte-derived extracellular vesicles immunomodulatory capacity as a potential therapeutic approach.

 

Ethan Strattan

I am a PhD candidate entering my 4th year at the University of Kentucky. I work in the lab of Gerhard Hildebrandt, MD, and I am a member in both the academic Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics department as well as the clinical Hematology and Blood and Marrow Transplantation department. Hildebrandt Lab studies the pathogenesis and treatment of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), and my project is focused on tissue-resident mast cells as mediators of fibrosis and alloreactive cell recruitment in chronic GVHD.

Christopher Lynch

I am a postdoc in the Bhattacharya lab at the University of Oxford, RDM Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. I attended ECMC2019 to update on our work using recombinantly produced novel tick salivary evasin-like peptide molecules that bind chemokines. The ECMC meetings are an excellent opportunity to interact with experienced scientists in the field and is a friendly environment. Indeed, some of the work I presented had arisen due to a collaboration that had been initiated at the previous ECMC meeting. As a protein biochemist, I am interested in the structure and fascinating ability of a single tick protein to target multiple chemokines. During my PhD at Imperial College London, I investigated the molecular mechanisms that regulated the haemostatic properties of von Willebrand Factor.

Abhinit Nagar

Abhinit Nagar graduated from University of Calcutta, Kolkata (India) with B.Sc in Microbiology (Hons), Chemistry and Botany. He completed his M.Sc in Applied Microbiology from Banaras Hindu University at Varanasi (India) in 2011. He is currently enrolled in PhD program in the Department of Immunology and Microbial Disease at Albany Medical College. His research focuses on elucidating the mechanism of activation and regulation of NLRP3 inflammasome. His goal is to understand the function of the perinuclear structures, specks, that are formed following inflammasome activation.

 

Carolina Chiale Ferreira

I’m a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Immunology and Microbial Disease at Albany Medical College. My research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of immune activation by virus-based therapeutic vaccine platforms for curing chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. My goal is to elucidate how these vaccines successfully activate effective CD8+ T cell responses to HBV in the immunotolerant environment of chronic infection.

 

Susanne Herbst

I received my master’s degree in immunology of infectious diseases from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and since then have followed my interest in host-pathogen interactions, especially seen from a cell biology view point. I did my PhD at Imperial College London in the lab of Darius Armstrong-James, where I investigated the role of macrophages in the immune response to the fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus. Continuing in the field of innate immunity, I am currently a post-doctoral researcher in the lab of Maximiliano Gutierrez at the Francis Crick Institute in London, where I study the function of the Parkinson’s Diseases-related kinase LRRK2 in the immune response against intracellular pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. I had the exciting opportunity to present my work at the Conference on Molecular Mechanisms of Inflammation in Norway, which due to its smaller size was also a fantastic environment to meet leading scientists in the field face to face.

 

Michael Guderyon -

Michael Guderyon graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2012 with a Bachelor of Science in both Microbiology and Chemistry. He then completed a Master of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 2015. He is currently pursuing his PhD in the Integrative Biomedical Science program within the Biology of Aging track at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, while maintaining his service as a member of the Air Force Reserves. His research is focused on using bone marrow transplants to rejuvenate the hematopoietic system using novel pre-conditioning regimes.

Xuewei Zhu -

Dr. Xuewei Zhu has been fascinated by the elegantly integrated systems that have evolved to control lipid metabolism since her doctoral training. She has been interested to understand the mechanisms of pathogenesis of inflammatory disease, especially from the aspects of nutritional immunology. Currently, her lab focuses on studying how macronutrients (including cholesterol, fatty acids and glucose) regulate macrophage inflammation and metabolic diseases including obesity, type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis.

Christina Martins -

I’m a 3rd year PhD candidate in the Infectious Diseases and Microbiology program at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health. I am currently working in the laboratory of Dr. Jon Piganelli for my predoctoral training, where my dissertation research project focuses on modulating CD4+ T cell metabolism to suppress autoimmunity and prevent Type 1 Diabetes in both in vitro and in vivo models of disease. Further, we are investigating the ability of microparticle technology to specifically target autoreactive T cells without impacting global immunity.

 

Elisabet Bjanes -

Elisabet is a 4th year Ph.D. student in the Cellular and Molecular Biology graduate group at the University of Pennsylvania. As a member of the Igor Brodsky lab, her research interests include innate immune responses to bacterial pathogens and programmed cell death during infection. Elisabet received the SLB Trainee Award at the Gordon Research Conference Microbial Toxins and Pathogenicity where she presented a poster identifying a mitochondrial protein as a regulator of a terminal checkpoint in cell death. Elisabet was additionally chosen for a short talk based on her poster at the GRC. She plans to pursue a post-doc following completion of her degree.

 

Erin Arroz  -

I am currently a PhD candidate at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. My research focuses on understanding how PMNs are affected by Bacillus cereus toxins and enzymes during bacterial endophthalmitis, a potentially blinding ocular disease. My goal is to understand the mechanism by which these toxins and enzymes reduce PMN ability to clear infection in this disease.

 


Toru Uchimura -

I’m working as a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Jenny Ting laboratory at Genetics department of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My research focus is on understanding how NLRs regulate T cell function during infection and autoimmunity.

 


Marcus Davis -

My name is Marcus Davis and I am a 2nd year Immunology Themed student in the Graduate Biomedical Science program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Our lab looks at characterizing human neutrophils during chronic inflammation using HIV-1 as our model. My project specifically analyzes the prevalence of rare undefined neutrophil subpopulations in HIV-1 infected patients and determining their functional capabilities. We hypothesize that (1) neutrophils are the drivers of the development of comorbidities in HIV-1 infected patients and (2) that surface markers on neutrophils or products released from neutrophils can be used as early prognostic markers for disease progression.

 

Kelsey Yamada -

Kelsey’s research focuses on understanding the cross-talk between leukocytes and S. aureus biofilms during orthopedic implant infections. Specifically, he is interested in the relationship between the metabolic and inflammatory properties of macrophages that are associated with these infections. A better understanding of how macrophage pro-inflammatory activity is inhibited during biofilm infections could allow for the development of novel treatments to increase their ability to kill bacteria and clear these chronic infections.

 

Nathanial  Magilnick -

I am a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Mark Boldin at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope in Duarte CA. The lab is interested in studying noncoding RNA mediators of the immune system. My work has focused on the miR-146 microRNA family and the role these short noncoding RNAs play in regulating normal immune cell development and function. Our most recent paper in PNAS highlights an interesting separation of function of the mRNA targets of miR-146a. I am excited to continue elucidating the molecular mechanisms of miR-146a directed gene silencing and how these important regulatory elements impact human pathologies.

 

Camille Simard -

My name is Camille Simard. I am currently a Master student in the Immunology program at the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. I have a Bachelor degree in Neuroscience. I am interested in studying neurodegenerative diseases especially Multiple Sclerosis (MS). MS is an autoimmune and demyelinating disease of the central nervous system. I am currently investigating the role of a NOD-like receptor, Nlrx1, in mitochondrial morphology, dynamics, and function as well as its role in susceptibility to MS. I participated in the 23e colloque provincial of Immuno-inflammation meeting that was held on June 15th 2018 in Eastman, Eastern townships, Québec. I won the best oral presentation. As a price, I was honored to receive a one-year membership at the Society for Leukocyte Biology.

Seth Reighard and Tzu-Yu (Jenny) Shao (awarded at the Cincinnati Immunology Retreat) -

Seth Reighard,  Taking CARs down a road less traveled: engineering a natural killer cell for the treatment of systemic autoimmune disease

Tzu-Yu (Jenny) Shao, Immunity to Invasive Infection by Intestinal Commensal Microbes

 

Izabela Galvao (Awarded at the Congress of the Brazilian Society of Immunology (SBI 2018))

Best poster in the post-doctoral category with the work entitled: "The role of PI3K isoforms in the resolution of a neutrophilc inflammation".

Maria Alice Lopes -

Undergraduate student in the lab of Dr. Menezes at the Center Gastrointestinal Biology (Brazil) participating at the Brazilian Society of Immunology congress.

 

Jean Louis Palgen -

I am currently performing my PhD project at the CEA in Fontenay-aux-Roses, France, under the supervision of Dr Anne-Sophie Beignon in the team  of Dr Roger Le Grand. I am studying the innate immunity induced by vaccination and how the innate system interact with the adaptive one during the establishment of immune memory.