Edana Cassol is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Sciences with a cross appointment in the Department of Neuroscience. She started the Systems Immunology Lab after exploring the world as a graduate student and a post-doctoral fellow (South Africa, Italy, and USA) and developing expertise in cellular and molecular immunology, infectious disease, and systems biology approaches. Her research group uses a combination of transcriptomics, metabolomics, biochemical, and immunological techniques to understand how cellular metabolism contributes to the regulation of innate immune function during infection.

Dr. Cassol is particularly interested in understanding how mitochondria regulate antiviral immune responses and how viruses are able to target the mitochondria to escape immune responses. Much of this work focuses on understanding how alterations in cellular metabolism contribute to chronic macrophage activation and dysfunction in HIV infection. We are currently examining how dysregulated cellular metabolism in brain macrophages contributes to neuroinflammation and the development of HIV-associated neurocognitive dysfunction.