Lab Members

Rojo Anthony Ratsimandresy, PhD, received his doctorate in immunology and bioinformatics at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris, France. After his PhD, he led the preclinical development of peptide-based anti-cytokine vaccines at Peptinov (Paris). In 2012, he joined the laboratory of Christian Stehlik, PhD, at Northwestern University as a postdoctoral research fellow to study the mechanisms of regulation of inflammasomes in macrophages and their relevance in many inflammatory diseases. In 2017, he was promoted to research assistant professor and oriented his research toward elucidating the protective pathways that involve a balanced host-microbiota ecosystem in the gut. Since October 2018, Ratsimandresy has been pursuing his studies as a project scientist at Cedars-Sinai with a special interest on the applications of gut microbiota interventions to enhance intestinal health.

Jessica Carriere, PhD, received her doctorate from Clermont-Ferrand University, France, in microbiology and cell biology. During this time, her research focused on innate immune responses and the role of extracellular vesicles in the propagation of inflammation in the context of Crohn’s disease and in response to infection with Crohn’s disease-associated pathogenic bacteria. To gain a greater understanding of innate immune responses, she began postdoctoral studies at the University of Southern California investigating the innate immune responses and the regulation of mitochondrial dynamics in response to herpesvirus infection. Following her postdoctoral position, Carriere joined the Stehlik and Dorfleutner Lab for a second postdoctoral position to study inflammasome signaling and its regulation in the context of inflammatory diseases.

Savita Devi, PhD, received her doctorate and master’s degree from University of Hyderabad, India, where she identified a novel mechanism employed by Helicobacter pylori to evade robust immune activation by exploiting the functional plasticity of innate immune receptors. Before joining Cedars-Sinai, Devi worked as a postdoctoral research associate at Washington University St. Louis, studying the role of goblet cell associated antigen passages in the induction and maintenance of tolerance in colon. In December 2019, she joined Stehlik and Dorfleutner Lab to decipher the regulation of innate immunity in the development of chronic infections and cancer. Devi’s current research work focuses on the regulatory mechanism of CARD-only proteins in canonical and non-canonical Inflammasome pathways.

Anu Gangopadhyay graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Michigan in 2008. Afterwards, she was a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health studying graft-versus-host disease in myeloma. In 2013, she joined the lab as a doctoral candidate under Christian Stehlik, PhD, at Northwestern University. Gangopadhyay is currently a visiting graduate student and finishing her degree at Cedars-Sinai. Her thesis project involves the regulation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, which is a multiprotein complex that mediates response to microbial infection and cellular damage to the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-1β and pyroptosis.

Huyen (Hayley) Nguyen earned her master’s degree at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she conducted research on the function of histone methyltransferase complex subunits in cytoplasm. She joined the Stehlik and Dorfleutner Lab in May 2019 and is currently focusing on toll-like receptors signaling pathways.