University of Alabama at Birmingham
Kendall Shaffer is a third-year microbiology PhD student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she studies co-infection of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the cystic fibrosis rat lung in the lab of Dr. Susan Birket, PharmD, PhD. Kendall earned her Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2020. During her time as an undergraduate student at UNC Chapel Hill, she performed research in the lab of Dr. Ann Matthyssee, PhD in the Department of Biology studying the role of beta-galactosidases in the virulence of Agrobacterium tumefaciens. After graduating in 2020, Kendall joined the lab of Dr. Camille Ehre, PhD at UNC School of Medicine’s Marsico Lung Institute and CF Research Center as a full-time researcher. Her work in Dr. Ehre’s lab included investigation into the mechanism of mucus normalization via Trikafta treatment in primary human airway cells, as well as the role of IL-13 in mediating epithelial damage and viral egress during SARS-CoV-2 infection, granting her authorship on 6 publications. Kendall joined the Graduate Biomedical Sciences program at UAB in 2022. Her current work in the Birket lab focuses on understanding mechanisms by which S. aureus infection in early life can promote subsequent P. aeruginosa infection through alterations of the CF lung metabolome.
Saturday, September 28, 2024
7:45 AM – 9:45 AM ET