Janis K. Burkhardt PhD

Dr. Burkhardt is a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and The University of Pennsylvania. her BA in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis and her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from Duke University. She obtained then conducted postdoctoral studies on cytoskeletal control of phagocytosis with Dr. Gareth Griffiths at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. In 1996, Dr. Burkhardt started her own laboratory in the Department of Pathology at the University of Chicago. She moved to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania in 2003, where she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. She was awarded the Evelyn and George Willing Chair in Pathology Research in 2008. Dr. Burkhardt’s research lies at the interface between cell biology and immunology. Using a combination of biochemical and microscopy-based approaches, she is working to define the mechanisms through which actin regulatory proteins choreograph T cell signaling and dendritic cell function, and seeking to understand how defects in cytoskeletal dynamics result in immunodeficiency or autoimmunity.