Laura Mandik-nayak PhD

aura Mandik-Nayak, Ph.D. is an associate professor of immunology at the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research. Dr. Mandik-Nayak has a broad background in immunology with specific training and expertise in inflammation and autoimmunity. In particular, her lab focuses on the triggering mechanisms by which the immune system becomes activated to induce autoantibody-mediated autoimmune responses. Since starting the first immunological laboratory at The Lankenau Institute in 2006, her work has focused on mediators driving the inflammatory autoimmune response in mouse models of rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and rheumatoid heart disease, with an emphasis on the immunoregulatory enzymes IDO1 and IDO2 and the small GTPase RhoB.

Dr. Mandik-Nayak received her B.S. in biology from Bucknell University and Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Pennsylvania working in the laboratory of Jan Erikson, Ph.D. She did her post-doctoral training at the Washington University School of Medicine in the laboratories of David Chaplin, M.D., Ph.D. and Paul M. Allen, Ph.D.