Deborah Dean, MD, MPH
Professor Dean’s research involves in vitro and bioinformatic approaches along with studies of human populations to address host-pathogen interactions, including bacterial genomics, host immune responses and microbiota/microbiome/metabolome associations with disease protection and pathogenesis related to the obligate intracellular bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. Her group was the first to identify genomic recombination in this human pathogen. The Dean lab also studies the evolution of zoonotic chlamydial species. Professor Dean’s international research focusses on trachoma and sexually transmitted disease populations in Nepal, India, Ecuador, Thailand, Vietnam and Fiji. In addition, her group collaborates with Bay Area biotech start-ups to develop vaccines and rapid inexpensive point-of-care diagnostics for C. trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae for global deployment. She has a track record of 33 years of uninterrupted funding from the National Institutes of Health in addition to grants from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, World Health Organization and the National Science Foundation. She has also mentored over 170 national and international undergraduate, graduate and medical students, and postdoctoral fellows who have gone on to university professorships and positions at institutes of health and centers for disease control throughout the world. Professor Dean remains an advocate for ocular and reproductive health among vulnerable and neglected populations worldwide.
The Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine (BCMM) stands committed to dismantling the structural barriers to education, research and employment endemic in our society, to promoting awareness of implicit bias and reinforcing inclusivity.
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