Vanessa Sperandio, Ph.D.
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Vanessa Sperandio, Ph.D., is the Jane and Bud Smith Distinguished Chair in Medicine, and a professor in the departments of microbiology and biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She earned her bachelor’s, masters and Ph.D. at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. She did her post-doctoral training at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
She was a Latin-American Pew Fellow in Biomedical Sciences, an Ellison Foundation New Scholar, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases, and a National Academy Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow. She is the recipient of the ASM 2015 Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research award, and a winner of the 2014 GSK Discovery Fast-track challenge. In 2013 she was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. She was Division D chair of ASM, the chair of the ASM Education Awards selection committee, a member of the ASM Microbe program committee, chair of the HMB Track ASM Microbe program committee. She is currently the chair of the ASM Press. She was a member of the national advisory committee of the Pew Latin American Fellows Program, and Projeto Serrapilheira in Brazil. She is a member of the advisory committee for the Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases. She currently serves on the editorial boards of mBio, Infection and Immunity, Journal of Bacteriology, and Gut Pathogens.
Her research investigates chemical, stress, and nutritional signaling among the mammalian host, beneficial microbiota, and bacterial pathogens. The main tenet of her research is the study of how bacterial cells sense several mammalian hormones, leading to rewiring and reprogramming of bacterial transcription toward host and niche adaptation. She has also identified several bacterial receptors to mammalian hormones and reported that pathogens hijack these interkingdom signaling systems to promote virulence expression. She also translated these basic science concepts into strategies to develop novel approaches to antimicrobial therapy.
She was a Latin-American Pew Fellow in Biomedical Sciences, an Ellison Foundation New Scholar, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases, and a National Academy Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow. She is the recipient of the ASM 2015 Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research award, and a winner of the 2014 GSK Discovery Fast-track challenge. In 2013 she was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. She was Division D chair of ASM, the chair of the ASM Education Awards selection committee, a member of the ASM Microbe program committee, chair of the HMB Track ASM Microbe program committee. She is currently the chair of the ASM Press. She was a member of the national advisory committee of the Pew Latin American Fellows Program, and Projeto Serrapilheira in Brazil. She is a member of the advisory committee for the Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases. She currently serves on the editorial boards of mBio, Infection and Immunity, Journal of Bacteriology, and Gut Pathogens.
Her research investigates chemical, stress, and nutritional signaling among the mammalian host, beneficial microbiota, and bacterial pathogens. The main tenet of her research is the study of how bacterial cells sense several mammalian hormones, leading to rewiring and reprogramming of bacterial transcription toward host and niche adaptation. She has also identified several bacterial receptors to mammalian hormones and reported that pathogens hijack these interkingdom signaling systems to promote virulence expression. She also translated these basic science concepts into strategies to develop novel approaches to antimicrobial therapy.