The latest research on imaging infectious diseases will be discussed during a mini-symposium noon to 5 p.m., April 12, at the Vanderbilt Student Life Center Board of Trust Room.
The event, featuring presentations by 10 Vanderbilt researchers, is sponsored by the Program in Microbial Pathogenesis and the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science.
Clifton Barry, Ph.D., chief of the Tuberculosis Research Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will give the keynote address at 2 p.m. on “in vivo imaging of tuberculosis: the dynamics of a chronic disease.”
This is the second mini-symposium sponsored by the Program in Microbial Pathogenesis, which was established in 2011 in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology “to address the growing need for new therapeutics to treat infectious diseases.”
Directed by Eric Skaar, Ph.D., MPH, Ernest W. Goodpasture Chair in Pathology and associate professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, the program hosts a microbiome working group and supports a journal club on microbial pathogenesis and host interactions.
It also awards mini-sabbatical fellowships to allow graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to expand their technical expertise and research horizons in the laboratories of program investigators.
This year’s mini-sabbatical awardees and their labs are:
• Melissa Farrow, Ph.D., in the labs of D. Borden Lacy, Ph.D., and James Goldenring, M.D., Ph.D.
• Katherine Nicholas, Ph.D. candidate, in the labs of Spyros Kalams, M.D., and Jonathan Irish, Ph.D.
• Jennifer Pickens, Ph.D., in the labs of James Crowe Jr., M.D., and Goldenring.
• Carrie Shaffer, Ph.D., in the labs of Maria Hadjifrangiskou, Ph.D., Timothy Cover, M.D., and Richard Caprioli, Ph.D.
• Jessica Sutton, graduate student at Meharry Medical College, in the labs of Xinhong Dong, Ph.D., and Kalams. Dong is a Meharry faculty member and adjunct assistant professor at Vanderbilt.
For more information about the fellowships and mini-symposium, visit the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology website at http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/root/vumc.php?site=vmcpathology and click on “microbial pathogenesis.”
