Biography
I received my PhD and postdoctoral training in pulmonary medicine research. I am directing a host-defenses research lab at the VA Ann Arbor Hospital and remain funded by the VA since 2002. I served as the primary adviser of a recent PhD graduate (Alison Eastman PhD) and now serve as adviser of a PhD junior faculty member and a postdoctoral fellow supported by Pulmonary T32 grant. I serve on Graduate Student Affairs Committee for the Graduate Program in Immunology at the University of Michigan and for 11 consecutive years direct a PhD level class Experimental Immunology (IMM 850), which prepares PhD students for qualifying exams in our T32-funded graduate program. I have successfully trained multiple post docs, grad students undergraduate students and post-bacs towards medical/graduate schools with the ultimate goal of training medical scientist (both physicians and PhDs) with over 95% placement rate at the desired next-step for their careers.
Research Interests
We are an interdisciplinary immunology lab using broad variety of biomedical appraoches working with whole animal systems, cell cultures, and molecular biology, and nanotechnology approaches to study molecular mechanisms, obtain detailed immunological profiling and of our specimens and/or to manipulate the immune system. We also work with human specimens to some extent. Examples of our techniques include animal immunization and microbial challenges, adoptive transfers, experimental immunotherapy, flow cytometry and flow sorting, SC-RNAseq, ChIPseq, NanoStrin ANalysis, multi-color fluorescent and confocal microscopies, immune cell functional assays in vitro, targeted gene mutations and generation of transgenic microbes for immunology research. We increasingly use bioinformatics to analyze our increasingly complex datasets.
Research Opportunities for Rotating Students
Modulation of immune response in pathobiology of CNS infection
Modulation of pulmonary host defenses in chronic infections