Fotini Gounari PhD

Dr. Fotini Gounari Ph.D. is a molecular immunologist and an expert in thymic development and mucosal immunity. She started her career in epigenetic regulation of gene expression and has continued to apply her expertise to T-cell biology in health and disease. She trained at the National Institute for Medical Research in London with Dr. Robin Holliday, served as junior faculty at the European Molecular Biology in Heidelberg Germany, worked and taught at the Institute Necker in Paris where she was honored with the qualification Habilitation diriger de recherche (H.D.R./D.Sc.), before joining The Dana Farber Institute at Harvard Medical School and later TUFTS as faculty.

She is currently Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago. Her areas of research are T-cell/regulatory T-cell development and function, and inflammation. Her studies focus on the Wnt/b-catenin signaling in T-lymphocytes and the interface of this pathway with gut microbiota and their metabolites. Dr. Gounari aims to identify key molecular pathways that are deregulated in chronic inflammation and cancer. Identification of such pathways will elucidate the molecular etiology of autoimmune diseases and cancer and holds the promise to lead to effective immune therapies.