Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D.
Yale University

Ruslan Medzhitov is the director of FASI, a Sterling professor of immunobiology at Yale University School of Medicine, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He is best known for his transformative discoveries in elucidating the integral role played by Toll-like receptors in the body’s innate immune system to defend against microbial infections and activate an immune response. His laboratory is
focused on allergy, inflammation, infection biology, cell signaling, and transcriptional control of cell fate decisions. Currently, he and his team are pioneering critical research to solve one of the biggest puzzles in immunology: how and why allergens induce immune responses.

 

 

Dariush Mozaffarian, M.D., Dr.PH.
Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy

Dariush Mozaffarian is a cardiologist, a professor of medicine at the Tufts Medical School, and a Jean Mayer professor of nutrition at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, where he currently serves as the dean. He has authored more than 400 scientific publications on dietary priorities for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, as well as on evidence-based policy approaches and innovations to reduce these burdens in the US and globally. He has served in numerous advisory roles, including for the US and Canadian governments, American Heart Association, World Health Organization, and United Nations. His work has been featured in a wide array of media outlets, and Thomson Reuters named him as one of the World's Most Influential Scientific Minds in 2016.

He earned his B.S. in biological sciences from Stanford University, his M.P.H. from University of Washington, and his Dr.PH. from Harvard University. He also received his M.D. at Columbia University, his residency training in internal medicine at Stanford University, and his fellowship training in cardiovascular medicine at the University of Washington. 

 

 

Elizabeth Sattely, Ph.D.
Stanford University

Elizabeth Sattely is an assistant professor in the department of chemical engineering at Stanford University, where she is a ChEM-H Faculty Fellow, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. She also serves as an honorary adjunct staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Science. Inspired by human reliance on plants and plant-derived molecules for food and medicine, the Sattely lab is focused on the discovery and engineering of plant metabolic pathways to make molecules that can enhance human and plant health.

She earned her Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Boston College, and conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School.

 

 

Eric C. Martens, Ph.D.
University of Michigan Medical School

Eric Martens is an associate professor at University of Michigan Medical School. His current research interests include investigating the roles of gut bacteria in human digestive physiology, the gut microbiome in inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer, genetic exchange between environmental and gut bacteria, and mechanisms through which gut bacteria break down dietary fiber polysaccharides and mucin glycoproteins.

He earned his B.A. in biology from Washington University and his Ph.D. in microbiology from University of Wisconsin-Madison. He conducted postdoctoral research in microbial genomics at Washington University Medical School.

 

 

Noah Palm, Ph.D.
Yale University School of Medicine

Noah Palm is an assistant professor in the Department of Immunobiology at the Yale University School of Medicine. His lab aims to understand the mechanisms by which microbiota interacts with and influences human hosts, as well as the causal effects of these interactions on human physiology in health and disease. To this end, he and his team develop and utilize novel high-throughput microbiota-profiling approaches, innovative microbiological tools, and sophisticated mouse models.

He earned his B.A. in biology from Macalester College and his Ph.D. in immunobiology from Yale University, where he also conducted postdoctoral research in host–microbiota interactions.

 

 

Talal A. Chatila, M.D. 

Boston Children’s Hospital

Talal Chatila is director of the Food Allergy Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he is an attending physician in the Division of Immunology. He is also a Denise and David Bunning professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. His research centers on elucidating mechanisms involved in the breakdown of immune tolerance in monogenic disorders of immunity and in common allergic inflammatory disorders, including asthma and food allergy. More recently, he and his group have elucidated mechanisms by which commensal microbiota and inflammatory signals control regulatory T cell functions, reprogramming these immune cells and leading to allergen tolerance breakdown in common allergic diseases.

He earned his B.Sc. in biology, his M.Sc. in biochemistry, and his M.D. from American University of Beirut.

 

 

Bana Jabri, M.D., Ph.D.
University of Chicago

Bana Jabri is a pediatric gastroenterologist at University of Chicago, where she is a Sarah and Harold Lincoln Thompson professor in the Department of Medicine. She is also the director of the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center. Her research focuses on mucosal and innate immunity, and more specifically the interplay between the immune system and mucosal surfaces. She has extensive experience in human immunology, and her lab uses a range of molecular and cellular approaches to study immune function in the intestine, with a particular focus on intestinal inflammatory diseases such as celiac disease and inflammatory bowel disease.

She earned her B.A. in biochemistry from the University of Paris, her M.D. from the Pasteur Institute, and her Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Paris.

 

 

Stephen D. Liberles, Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School

Stephen Liberles is a professor at Harvard Medical School, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and an associate member of the Broad Institute. His lab studies sensory neuroscience, with a recent focus on internal organ senses of the vagus nerve. He discovered new families of olfactory receptors, and revealed vagal sensory neurons and receptors that act throughout the body—from airways and arteries to the gastrointestinal tract—to preserve vital physiological functions.

He earned his B.A. in chemistry from Harvard University, where he also received his Ph.D. in chemistry and chemical biology. He also conducted postdoctoral research in molecular neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

 

 

Diego V. Bohórquez, Ph.D.
Duke University School of Medicine

Diego V. Bohórquez is an assistant professor of medicine and an assistant research professor of neurobiology at Duke University. His expertise is in gut­–brain sensory transduction, and his lab focuses on dissecting the neural circuits that transform signals from food and bacteria in the gut into electrical inputs that modulate behaviors like the desire to eat. In 2015, he discovered that, like taste cells in the tongue, the gut also has a sensory neuroepithelial circuit—work that has been featured in Nature, TED ideas blog, and The New Yorker.

He earned his Ph.D. from North Carolina State University and conducted his postdoctoral research in neurogastroenterology at Duke University School of Medicine.