Biography
Dr. Ptaschinski received her PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the State University of New York – Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY in 2009, where her research focused on the neonatal immune response to chronic viral infection. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Paul Foster at the University of Newcastle in Newcastle, Australia. While there, she researched microRNA regulation of immune cell differentiation and function, especially in the context of respiratory viral infection. She continued her postdoctoral work with Dr. Nicholas Lukacs in the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan, studying epigenetic regulation of dendritic cells following viral infection. She is currently researching the role of developmental proteins in respiratory disease, with a focus on allergic disease. She also has a joint appointment in the Mary H. Weiser Food Allery Center, through which she is working with a model of eosinophilic esophagitis to find potential pathways that can be targeted therapeutically.