2024 M. Irene Ferrer Awardee, Columbia University
Jen is an Infectious Diseases physician-scientist who studies molecular mechanisms of antimalarial drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum parasites. She received her MD and PhD degrees from the Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan-Kettering Tri-institutional MD/PhD program, where she studied mechanisms of acid resistance and cytochrome c maturation inMycobacterium tuberculosis. She then completed Internal Medicine residency and Infectious Diseases fellowship at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC). Her postdoctoral studies investigated the landscape of mutations in the P. falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter PfCRT and how these mutations contribute to parasite resistance to chloroquine and piperaquine in Asia and Africa. Her group now uses mass spectrometry and gene editing techniques to study the role of tRNA modification reprogramming and translational control in resistance to the first line antimalarial, artemisinin. The goal of her group is to uncover novel epigenetic and epitranscriptomic stress-response pathways in malaria parasites that can be targeted for new antimalarials. Her work has been supported by a Doris Duke Physician Scientist Fellowship, an NIH/NIAID K08 Career Development Award, a Louis V. Gerstner, Jr Scholar Award and a 2024 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. She is also the recipient of an ASCI Young Physician Scientist award and the 2024 Infectious Diseases Society of New York Junior Faculty Research award. In addition to her laboratory research, she is a practicing Infectious Diseases physician who sees patients on both the Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases teaching services. When she’s not in the lab she can be found with her husband, 2 children and 2 dogs.
Awarded $50,000