Stephanie is a senior studying microbiology at the University of California – Riverside. At her home institution, Stephanie conducts research in Dr. Adler Dillman’s nematology lab. The Dillman lab investigates how insect hosts recognize/initiate an immune response to parasitic nematode invasion and how parasites evade/suppress host immunity. Stephanie studies bacterial-induced immune responses of Drosophila melanogaster CRISPR mutants to examine the potential immune functions of various enzymatic homologs of the lipid and eicosanoid synthesis pathways.

As a UCLA Amgen Scholar, Stephanie works in Dr. Peter Bradley’s parasitology lab in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, & Molecular Genetics. The Bradley lab studies the molecular biology of the obligate intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii, focusing on the roles that secretory organelles play during host-cell invasion. T.gondii causes Toxoplasmosis, a severe infection that develops in immunocompromised or pregnant individuals via contaminated food and feline feces. Stephanie’s project investigates the roles of T.gondii aurora kinases, TgArk2 and TgArk3, in parasite cell division and centrosome function. She explored whether the localization of TgArk2 is altered in a TgArk3 knockout background and how the loss of both TgArk2 and TgArk3 affects parasite fitness. By utilizing CRISPR/Cas9, cloning, and immunofluorescence assays, the lab aims to better understand these kinases and the clues they may provide for developing new drugs targeting parasite-specific functions in T. gondii and other apicomplexan parasites.

Stephanie would like to thank the entire Bradley Lab, especially Dr. Bradley and Rebecca Pasquarelli, for their mentorship and the Amgen Foundation and UCLA Amgen Scholars Program for their generous support.