Jessica Elmore

Hi my name is Jessica Elmore. I grew up in Columbus, Georgia and I went to college at Howard University in Washington, D.C where I graduated with a degree in Biology.

My fascination with science began in grade school. My middle school science teacher, Dr. Kelly, made science exciting by teaching us how people made scientific discoveries.

I decided on a career in biomedical research when I was an undergraduate at Howard University. My college Microbiology & Immunology classes piqued my interests in pathogenic organisms and the host immune responses that protect us against them. A combination of rewarding laboratory research experiences and faculty encouragement solidified this decision.

I’m most interested in studying host-pathogen interactions of highly infectious agents that lack effective treatments and pose significant health concerns.

Working as an independent investigator in a government setting would be an ideal venue to realize this dream.

I joined the PREP program to gain additional research experiences surrounded by like-minded individuals in a supportive environment where everyone wants you to succeed.

I hope to achieve acceptance into a competitive doctoral graduate program where I can further hone the skills needed to become an independent researcher.

Dr. Wendy Watford is my faculty mentor. Her lab focuses on the regulation of immune responses by cytokines. My research mentor, Nicole Acuff, is a 4th year graduate student who studies Th17 immunity.

My project aims to determine how the host Tpl2 kinase regulates the antimicrobial functions of neutrophils, which are important first responders during an infection. I will evaluate neutrophil recruitment, phagocytosis of microbes, cytokine secretion, and the generation of antimicrobial reactive oxygen species in response microbes.

To address this, I will use a varied approach consisting of chemotaxis, phagocytosis, microscopy and gene expression assays, among others. My hypothesis is that Tpl2 is an essential positive regulator of neutrophil functions that promotes host defense.

My name is Jessica Elmore and I am a PREP@UGA scholar.