Ayana Paul

Program: Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
Faculty Advisor: Jyothi Rengarajan, PhD

Ayana received her bachelor’s in science for Biological Sciences from Duke University, Trinity College of Arts and Sciences (Class of 2021). As an undergrad, she studied the opportunistic fungal pathogen, Cryptococcus neoformans in Dr. John Perfect’s lab under the mentorship of both Dr. Perfect and Dr. Jennifer Tenor. After graduating, she received research training from the Post-baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) at the Medical University of SC and studied the opportunistic bacterial oral pathogen, Porphyromonas gingivalis, in Dr. Ozlem Yilmaz’s Laboratory. She is pursuing a PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and is currently training under the mentorship of Dr. Jyothi Rengarajan. Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading global infectious disease killer and is caused by the bacterial pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Understanding how the human immune system controls M. tuberculosis is critical to designing interventions for infection prevention, adjuvants, and treatment to eliminate intracellular M. tuberculosis. The current aim Ayana’s dissertation work is to understand the role of specific immune cell signaling in the control of M. tuberculosis infection in lung macrophages and findings from this work may inform improved vaccine development and therapeutics against M. tuberculosis.