Galadriel Hovel-Miner, PhD, who had previously been a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Biology at Rockefeller University in New York, has joined the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine in December 2015 as a new Assistant Professor. Dr. Hovel-Miner was one of the successful candidates in the MITM tenure-track faculty search.
Dr. Hovel-Miner is a molecular parasitologist with extensive experience in antigenic variation in African trypanosomes. Trypanosomes are unicellular protozoan parasites that cause a chronic and often fatal disease in humans. By changing the expression of proteins on their cell surface, trypanosomes efficiently evade the host immune system. At GW, Dr. Hovel-Miner will establish a research program to uncover the molecular basis of antigenic variation and identify mechanisms that can be exploited as drug targets for the development of treatments for neglected tropical diseases.
