Staci Bilbo facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Staci Bilbo
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | B.A. University of Texas at Austin, M.A. and Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University, Postdoctoral work University of Colorado |
| Known for | Neonatal infection primes microglia |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroimmunology |
| Institutions | Duke University |
Staci Bilbo is an American scientist who studies the brain and the immune system. She is a professor at Duke University. She also works at Massachusetts General Hospital. There, she helps with research at the Lurie Center for Autism. Dr. Bilbo leads a lab that studies how things that happen early in life, like around the time of birth, affect the immune system. She also looks at how these early experiences can change brain development. This research helps us understand how our early environment can influence how we think and feel later on.
Contents
Dr. Bilbo's Education Journey
Learning About the Brain and Body
Staci Bilbo started her college studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She studied both psychology, which is about how people think, and biology, which is about living things. She earned her first degree in 1998 with high honors. While she was there, she researched how a part of the brain helps frogs learn.
Graduate Studies and Discoveries
After college, Dr. Bilbo went to Johns Hopkins University. She earned her master's degree in 2000. Then, she continued her studies and got her PhD in Neuroendocrinology. This field looks at how hormones and the nervous system work together.
Her PhD research explored how social life and the environment affect the body's immune system. She studied how immune signals influenced how prairie voles chose partners. She also looked at how male and female Siberian Hamsters had different immune responses based on their sex hormones. Dr. Bilbo even found that changes in daylight hours could affect the hamsters' immune systems. This helped her understand how animals prepare for infections based on their environment.
Dr. Bilbo's Career and Research
Early Research on Brain and Immunity
After finishing her PhD, Dr. Bilbo did more research at the University of Colorado in 2003. This is called postdoctoral work. She focused on neuroimmunology, which is the study of how the brain and immune system interact. Her work here looked at how infections in baby rats could affect their memory when they grew up.
In 2007, Dr. Bilbo became a professor at Duke University. She led the Developmental Neuroimmunology Lab until 2016. During this time, she studied how the immune system affects brain development. She also researched how early infections could change brain cells and immune functions later in life.
Research at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital
In 2016, Dr. Bilbo joined Harvard Medical School. She also became a research director at the Lurie Center for Autism at Massachusetts General Hospital. Here, she studied how certain things affected the brain. For example, she looked at how exposure to some substances in young animals affected their brain cells. She also researched how pollution during pregnancy could impact a baby's health, behavior, and brain inflammation later on.
In 2018, Dr. Bilbo and her team studied special brain cells called microglia. They found that these cells play a role in how young rats behave socially. Following this, Dr. Bilbo wrote about the important links between the immune system, social behavior, and brain pathways.
Returning to Duke University
In July 2019, Dr. Bilbo returned to Duke University. She is now the Haley Family Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience. She still works with the Lurie Center and other scientists in Boston.
Dr. Bilbo is very active in the science community. She helps edit scientific journals like Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. She also encourages more girls and women to get involved in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
Awards and Honors
- 2013 – Bass Connections Team Leader – Brain and Society Theme
- 2013 – Glenn Hatton Lecture – UC Riverside Center for Glial-Neuronal Interactions
- 2011 – Frank Beach Young Investigator Award, Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology
- 2010 – Robert Ader New Investigator Award, PsychoNeuroImmunology Research Society
- 2010 – Duke Institute for Brain Sciences Research Incubator Award
- 2003 – NIMH National Research Service Award, postdoctoral fellow 2005–2008
- 2003 – Women in Neuroscience Travel Award
- 2002 – American Psychological Assoc. Science Directorate Dissertation Research Award
- 1998 – Graduation with Honors and Special Honors in Psychology, The University of Texas
