Kirsten Nielsen, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the Medical School at the University of Minnesota. Her research addresses how pathogens adapt in the host to survive and cause disease. Nielsen received her B.S. in biochemistry from Purdue University. She then performed studies on the antifungal activity of a maize ribosome-inactivating protein on the fungal plant pathogen Aspergillus flavus and the model organism Aspergillus nidulans, obtaining her Ph.D. in botany from North Carolina State University. Prior to joining joining the University of Minnesota, Nielsen was a post-doctoral fellow at Duke University were she initiated her studies on the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans.
 
Currently, her teams’ translational studies using animal models and human clinical isolates, along with their co-discovery of an entirely new in vivo fungal cell morphology, the titan cell, highlights the critical role of adaptability during host-pathogen interactions that misdirect the human immune system to dramatically increase pathogenicity and mortality. This research is transforming fundamental concepts underlying disease and is generating novel treatment avenues.