The talk will cover the overall research interests in my lab and specifically highlight our work on HLA-DRA SNPs and LRRK2 in human peripheral blood immune cells from subjects with Parkinson’s (versus controls) and the potential role of the gut-brain axis in the pathogenesis of PD.

Malú Gámez Tansey obtained her B.S/M.S in Biological Sciences from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in Physiology from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Tansey spent two years in the biotech sector after post-doctoral training at Washington University in St. Louis before returning to academia and is now a tenured Professor of Physiology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA and a member of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease.

Dr. Tansey is the Senior Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) for the Emory Neuroscience Graduate Program and a member of the Executive Committee of the Emory Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis (IMP) Graduate Program. As a Hispanic American, Dr. Tansey has served as a role model to numerous undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate trainees, many of them women from underrepresented minority groups. She serves as the new Director of Emory’s Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) whose mission is to strengthen institutional efforts to enhance recruitment and retention of diverse student and faculty bodies at Emory, by providing research training and mentoring opportunities to both.

The general research interests of Dr. Tansey’s laboratory include investigating mechanisms underlying the role of cytokine signaling and brain-immune system crosstalk in health and disease, in particular the role and regulation of central and peripheral inflammatory and immune system responses in modulating the gene-environment and gut-brain axis interactions that determine risk for development and progression of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and related dementias, and neuropsychiatric diseases like depression.