Announcing the 2022 Election Results

Two former ICIS Young Investigator Award Winners take on leadership roles at the International Cytokine & Interferon Society – Announcing the 2022 Election Results

Susan Carpenter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology,
University of California Santa Cruz,
Santa Cruz, USA
https://sites.google.com/a/ucsc.edu/carpenter-lab/?pli=1
@labcarpenter

My training and expertise are in the areas of innate immunity and inflammation. My scientific career began with graduate studies under the mentorship of Prof. Luke O’Neill at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. My early work was focused on the germline encoded receptors such as the Toll like receptors (TLRs) and their functions in activating signaling pathways to provide protection against invading pathogens. We identified a previously uncharacterized LPS inducible protein, which we named TRIL (TLR4 interactor with leucine rich repeats). I identified TRIL as a critical component of the TLR4 and TLR3 signaling pathways. TRIL was found to bind to and function as a co-receptor for these two TLRs.

In 2010 I obtained a Health Research Board/Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship enabling me to complete my postdoctoral training with Prof. Kate Fitzgerald at the UMASS Medical School. UMASS medical school hosts some of the leaders in the world of RNA biology. I was fortunate to form a number of collaborations, which lead us to one of the most exciting discoveries that long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) can play critical roles in controlling innate immune signaling pathways. During this time at UMASS I had the opportunity to work with computational biologists (Daniel Caffrey’s lab) as well as RNA biologists (Melissa Moore’s lab) on this exciting multidisciplinary project. The exceptional expertise in both innate immunity and RNA biochemistry facilitated rapid development and advancement of our work. We showed for the first time that one lncRNA, lincRNA-Cox2 acts as a key regulator of inflammatory signaling. lincRNA-Cox2 is essential for controlling basal levels of interferon stimulated genes (ISGs) and at the same time is needed for production of inflammatory stimulated cytokines. These are key events necessary to protect the host from infection and maintain homeostasis.

In 2013 I moved to the University of California in San Francisco to complete my postdoctoral training in the lab of Dr. Michael McManus. Michael is a leader in the field of RNA research and his lab has a strong technical background developing high throughout screening tools. I obtained funding from the arthritis national research foundation to work on lncRNAs controlling inflammation during this period. While at UCSF I developed by expertise in deep sequencing and high throughput screening.

I began my independent research program at the University of California in Santa Cruz in 2015. My research involves the study of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) and their functions within the immune system. Our use of Cas9/CRISPR technology allows for rapid and meaningful progress to be made in understanding the regulatory functions of lncRNA. My ultimate research goals are to provide critical and novel insights into how our immune cells develop and respond during infection with the aim to identifying novel drug targets leading to improved therapeutics for infectious and inflammatory diseases. Since establishing my independent research group at UCSC in 2015 I have had two graduate students complete their training, and I am currently training 6 graduate students. I have supervised 3 postdoctoral researchers and two technicians as well as over 40 undergraduates. We run a CRISPR Core facility out of my lab that provides services including cloning, generation of cells lines and running high throughput CRISPR screens. I am eager to provide a vibrant and productive research setting to help train the next generation of researchers.

I have been a member of the International Cytokine and Interferon Society (ICIS) for over a decade. I first became aware of the society as a graduate student when the then Cytokine and Interferon Societies first merged. Every year I attend the ICIS conference with my students. I have found it to be one of the most welcoming communities and I am eager to be an active participant of the society as Secretary. I am dedicated to the mission of the society and look forward to having this opportunity to serve.

Shruti Naik, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine
Assistant Professor, Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology
https://med.nyu.edu/faculty/shruti-naik
@DrShrutiNaik

Dr. Shruti Naik is an Assistant Professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in the Department of Pathology, Ronald O. Perlman Department of Dermatology and Department of Medicine. Her lab studies the crosstalk between immune cells and tissue stem cells in the skin and gut with a focus on 3 major areas of research: inflammatory memory, and autoimmunity, tissue repair, and host-microbe interactions. 

Naik is a strong advocate for increasing diversity in science and promoting the advancement of underrepresented and marginalized groups. She has been recognized for her research and advocacy through numerous accolades including the International Takeda Innovators in Science Award, Pew-Stewart Scholar, NIH Directors Innovator Award DP2, and the ICIS Regeneron New Investigator Award. 

ICIS Awards Committee Chair, Bryan Williams (Left) presenting the 2017 Christina Fleischmann Award to Susan Carpenter (Center), with Session Chair, Keiko Ozato (Right)