The Smith Lab concluded a year of excellent rotations by hosting Margaret Gaggioli as a rotation student this spring.
Originally from southeastern Wisconsin, Margaret moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 2015 for her undergraduate education. TB research was not new to her, as she spent 2.5 years in Dr. Christina Stallings’ lab as an undergraduate and post-baccalaureate researcher studying the host myeloid cell response to Mycobacteria tuberculosis infection. During her time at Duke, Margaret is interested in continuing to investigate the pathogenesis of infectious diseases, focusing on host-pathogen interactions.
Margaret took a new angle on her rotation project and made her mark on the direction of investigation. Margaret studied host genetic determinants of tuberculosis tolerance among Collaborative Cross mice and began to ask questions about inflammatory signaling and cachexia during M. tuberculosis infection. After completing her training in the BSL-3 laboratory, she cultured spleens to quantify bacterial burden and conduct QTL mapping to identify causal host genes. After her rotation, Margaret will be joining the Ko lab, and we look forward to all of the things she will accomplish during her time at Duke!
