Nina Papavasiliou facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nina Papavasiliou
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| Alma mater | Rockefeller University Oberlin College |
| Awards | Searle Scholar, NIH Director's Transformative Research Project Award, ERC Consolidator Award |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Immunology, Molecular Biology |
| Institutions | German Cancer Research Center, Rockefeller University, Yale University |
| Doctoral advisor | Michel C. Nussenzweig |
Nina Papavasiliou is a top scientist who studies the immune system. She is a professor at the German Cancer Research Center in Germany. She also teaches at Rockefeller University in the United States. Dr. Papavasiliou is famous for her research on how DNA and RNA can be changed or "edited" inside our bodies.
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Becoming a Scientist
Nina Papavasiliou earned her first degree in biology from Oberlin College in 1992. After that, she went to Rockefeller University to get her PhD. There, she worked in a lab that studied the immune system.
She began to study how special cells called B cells make antibodies. Antibodies are like tiny defense tools that help our bodies fight off germs. She wanted to know how these antibodies change to recognize different invaders. She continued this research at the Yale School of Medicine.
What Nina Papavasiliou Studies
Dr. Papavasiliou's research helps us understand how living things change the information in their DNA and RNA. This information is like a blueprint for our bodies. She opened her own lab at Rockefeller University in 2001.
How Our Bodies Fight Germs
Much of her early work focused on the adaptive immune system. This part of our immune system learns to fight many different germs. It does this by quickly making new antibodies. These antibodies can specifically recognize and attack invaders.
Her team has studied an enzyme called activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID). An enzyme is a special protein that helps speed up chemical reactions. AID changes a part of DNA called cytidine (C) into uracil (U). Our bodies see this change as damage. They then try to fix it, which often leads to a new change. This process is called somatic hypermutation. It helps B cells quickly change their defense tools to recognize invaders, also known as antigens. Dr. Papavasiliou's lab works to understand how AID works and which genes it targets.
Editing RNA
Dr. Papavasiliou also studies RNA editing. RNA is like a messenger that carries instructions from DNA. She uses new technologies like next-generation sequencing to find and study these changes. Her team first found new ways that an enzyme called APOBEC1 edits RNA. Before, scientists thought APOBEC1 only edited one specific protein. Her group is now trying to find out what other roles APOBEC1 might have.
How Germs Hide from Our Bodies
More recently, Dr. Papavasiliou started studying how germs change their outer layers to hide from our immune system. This is called antigenic variation. She uses a tiny parasite called Trypanosoma brucei for her studies. This parasite causes African sleeping sickness. Her team has created new tools to understand how these parasites change their outer coats. They want to learn how the parasites can keep changing during an infection.
In 2016, Dr. Papavasiliou moved to the German Cancer Research Center. She continues her important research there.
Awards and Honors
Nina Papavasiliou has received many awards for her scientific work:
- Keck Fellow, 2002
- Searle Scholar, 2003
- Sinsheimer Fund Scholar, 2005
- Thorbecke Award, Society for Leukocyte Biology, 2006
- The Vilcek Foundation Prize Finalist for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science, 2009
- National Institutes of Health Director’s Transformative Research Project Award, 2011
See also
In Spanish: Nina Papavasiliou para niños
