Seminar Series: Sarah Cobey- Immune memory, vaccination, and the dynamics of selection on influenza

Dr Cobey is an associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, the Program in Biophysics, and the Committee on Microbiology at the University of Chicago. Her group investigates the coevolution of pathogens and hosts' adaptive immunity, using computational and mathematical tools to test hypotheses and to advance theory. Her early work focused on the evolutionary consequences of immune-mediated competition between different pathogen strains, including influenza, pneumococcus, and human papillomavirus. More recently, her focus has expanded to include the dynamics of the host immune response: how chance, infection history, vaccination, age, and other factors shape the evolution of antibody repertoires over time. This research involves linking immunology, epidemiology, and virology with ecological and evolutionary principles, with the intention of developing better vaccination strategies.

Dr Cobey graduated from Princeton University in 2002, obtained her PhD in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Michigan in 2009, and completed a NIH Ruth Kirschstein fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2013. At the University of Chicago, she was awarded a NIH New Innovator Award, a McDonnell Foundation Complex Systems Scholar Award, and a Neubauer Faculty Development Fellowship.

Because this talk will have unpublished data, we are asking attendees to register       https://forms.gle/NGjbqzxXt2oX2B1c8