Nizet Lab People: Cheryl Okumura, Ph.D.

Cheryl Okumura, PhD
Postgraduate Researcher

Originally from Hawaii, Cheryl Okumura received her undergraduate education at Pomona College majoring in Molecular Biology. While an undergraduate, she studied endonuclease function in the laboratory of Len Seligman. After graduation, she traveled to the NIH/NIAID to join the laboratory of Herbert Morse to study the immunopathology of B-cell lymphomas using cDNA microarray technologies. She then entered the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program at the University of California, Los Angeles where her dissertation studies were carried out under the mentorship of Patricia Johnson. In her thesis, she examined the role of lipophosphoglycan in the binding and cytotoxicity of the parasite Trichomonas vaginalis to human cells. She also identified the first ever receptor for T. vaginalis on human cells, galectin-1.

Cheryl's initial projects in the laboratory will explore the role of candidate immune resistance factors of Group A Streptococcus in the shift from localized to invasive infection as well as the role of HIF-1 in innate immune function of neutrophils and macrophages. She is the recipient of a fellowship from the UCSD/SDSU IRACDA Program.