I was introduced to Dr. Wetzel by Dr. Phillips. Dr. Dawn Wetzel, head of the Wetzel lab, is an early-career physician-scientist who cares for children with infectious diseases and conducts basic and translational research in medically relevant parasitic diseases. She has been performing biological research throughout her undergraduate and medical training. She earned a Ph.D. in Microbiology by demonstrating that actin polymerization and calcium secretion regulate a unique form of motility and cell invasion by the Apicomplexa phylum of parasites. When she became a Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellow, she began to characterize the molecular mechanisms that regulate Leishmania uptake by macrophages. Her work demonstrated that preventing Leishmania entry into macrophages through genetic or chemical inhibition of the Abl family kinases decreases disease manifestations in the mouse model of leishmaniasis. This work resulted in invitations to speak at national meetings, publications, and multiple competitive grants, including a Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award (K08) from the NIH.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Margaret A. Phillips was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1959. She received her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of California, Davis (1981) and her PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of California, San Francisco (1988), where she was also a postdoctoral fellow in the Dept. of Biochemistry (1988-1992).

Dr. Phillips is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at UT Southwestern, where her research focuses on biochemistry and drug discovery in parasitic protozoa.

Dr. Phillips was my fourth interview of the year. She introduced me to her work with malaria and her lab members. I was able to sit in on a lab meeting and observe some of what her lab does. I was very impressed  by her work with malaria and antimalarial drugs, and her obvious passion for science.