ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine
BACKGROUND:
Veronika Zarnitsyna is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Emory University School of Medicine. She completed her master’s degree in Physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and her PhD in biophysics at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics in Puschino, Russia. Applying single-molecule techniques to T cells and neutrophils during her postdoc at Georgia Tech, she became fascinated by their intricate responses, and this experience changed her professional trajectory. She completed an intensive summer course, Physiology, in the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole followed by her postdoc in the immunology field at Emory University. Since she joined the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in 2015, she is doing integrative work with data from human studies and mouse immunity experiments, focusing on modeling humoral and cellular adaptive immunity to viral infections.
PROFESSIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
- Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine, 2015-present
- MPI, NIH U01 “Multiscale modeling of influenza vaccination strategies for optimal T cell immunity”
- Associate Member, The American Association of Immunologists (AAI), 2019 – current
- Member of Multiscale Modeling and Viral Pandemics Group and Group Lead for subgroup Physiological Models: Innate and adaptive immune response, 2020 – current
- Sigma Xi Best Paper Awards, Georgia Tech Chapter, 2008 (PNAS 2007 paper) & 2011 (Nature 2010 paper)
AREAS OF INTEREST
- Estimation of vaccine effectiveness in the case of fast intraseasonal waning; simulation of epidemics (ODE and agent-based modeling)
- Predictive models of immune response to viral infections; role of preexisting immunity in shaping immune response
- T cell cross-reactivity and functional T cell repertoire
- Analysis of longitudinal data for immune response to infection (mixed-effects models), maintenance and waning of immunity
- Pathogens that exhibit strain variation (e.g., influenza, SARS-CoV-2
PUBLICATIONS