Amal O Amer MD, PhD

Dr. Amal Amer joined OSU in February 2007 as an Assistant Professor in the Pulmonary Division, Department of Internal Medicine. Her laboratory is located in the BRT among the CMIB group which is a great fit with the host-pathogen interaction theme of the group. Dr. Amer earned her MD from Cairo University in Egypt, then a PhD in 2002 from The University of Western Ontario in Canada from The Department of Microbiology and Immunology. After her experience with microbiology research, she decided to pursue her career in academia. In 2001, she joined the laboratory of Dr. Michele Swanson, then in 2003 the laboratory of Dr. Gabriel Nunez at the University of Michigan as a postdoctoral fellow. She studied the pathogenesis of Legionella pneumophila and its interaction with macrophages. Her work in Dr. Nunez’s lab resulted in key publications in Nature, Nature Immunology and The Journal of Biological Chemistry discovering bacterial ligands recognized by previously uncharacterized NOD-like receptors. She also found that the activation of caspases, which were always studied in the context of cell death, can offer novel vital functions in the cell and prevent infection independently of cell death. Dr. Amer became fascinated with the cytosolic NOD-like receptors and their ability to activate inflammatory responses to combat pathogens. She decided to focus her work in her laboratory here at OSU on the novel functions of NOD-like receptors and caspases in innate immune response to pulmonary pathogens.