Personal Statement

I am a physician-scientist in transfusion medicine and clinical pathology who is dedicated to discovering and translating immunologic findings into improved management of immune responses to RBC antigens. While completing my graduate training in B cell immunology, I was struck by the critical role of immune responses to self and foreign RBC antigens and the multitude of unanswered mechanistic questions underlying these responses. Thus, I applied my knowledge, skills and experience in basic immunology research to improve our understanding of clinically significant immune responses occurring in transfusion recipients, including patients with sickle cell disease. With the support of mentors and an early-career investigator grant from the National Blood Foundation, I generated data that highlighted the role of type 1 interferons in immune responses to transfused RBCs. As a faculty member at Cedars-Sinai—where I am supported by the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Scholar Award, the ASH Scholar supplement award, K08 and R03 grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and multiple local mentors—I lead a team that investigates the role of inflammatory pathways in regulating RBC antibody responses in patients with lupus and sickle cell disease. The ultimate goal is to improve the safety of blood transfusion by identifying at-risk patients who would benefit from personalized transfusion protocols.