Dr. Parisa Kalantari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences at Pennsylvania State University. She obtained her PhD in Pathobiology in the Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Disease at Pennsylvania State University. Her postdoctoral work with Drs. Douglas Golenbock and Katherine Fitzgerald at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, focused on studying the complex innate immune response to infection with Plasmodium parasites. This work contributed significantly to our understanding of how malaria products induce immune responses, and which host receptors recognize these molecules. As a Research Assistant Professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine, she applied her expertise in innate immunity toward a better understanding of the molecular pathways that restrain severe immunopathology in schistosomiasis. The Kalantari Lab continues to study mechanisms that regulate parasite egg-induced hepatic granulomatous inflammation in murine infection with the species Schistosoma mansoni, focusing on host receptors and signaling pathways that modulate inflammation.

Her lab is focused on:

1) Immune pathways involving STING and autophagy in the restraining immunopathology in schistosomiasis, and

2) Role of inflammasomes in inducing schistosomiasis with an emphasis on Th17 cellular response to infection.

Dr. Kalantari is currently funded by an NIH R01 grant.