Congratulations to Alexandra Ysasi for Receiving an F31 Award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Alexandra Ysasi is a PhD candidate in the Molecular and Translational Medicine Program at Boston University School of Medicine, performing thesis research in the laboratory of Dr. George Murphy in the Center for Regenerative Medicine. She received her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Bowdoin College, where she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Seth Ramus examining the role of the hippocampus in anterograde and retrograde spatial memory, and in the laboratory of Dr. Patsy Dickinson studying neuropeptide function in the lobster cardiac and stomatogastric nervous systems. Upon completion of her undergraduate education, she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Steven Mentzer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School studying the mechanisms of adult lung repair and compensatory growth. In her graduate studies at Boston University, she has become interested in understanding epithelial-immune interactions and the role of the immune microenvironment in tissue regeneration and repair. As a F31 predoctoral fellow, her current research is exploring macrophage heterogeneity in the respiratory system, pulmonary hematopoietic cell origin, and the role of pulmonary macrophages in airway regeneration and repair.