Research/Areas of Interest
My research is focused on defining how the innate immune system and inflammatory processes
contribute to disease and aging. We aim to define how mitochondria function as central regulators of innate immune and inflammatory responses, and
and to delineate how the mitochondrial-innate immune axis contributes to primary mitochondrial diseases, neurological disorders, and cancer.
One important theme of my research centers on characterizing how mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to the pathobiology of neuroinflammatory
diseases. We are particularly interested in Gulf War Illness, a chronic multi-symptom disorder affecting approximately 30 percent of the nearly 700,000 Veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War that is associated with cognitive impairment and neuroinflammation.
Education
- BS, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
- PhD, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA