Associate Professor Heather Jaspan
Affiliations
- Full Member, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine
- Division of Immunology, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences
- Professor, Department of Global Health and Pediatrics; University of Washington, Seattle,
- Member, Center for Global Infectious Disease Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
- Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Africa (CIDRI-Africa)
Key Expertise
Female Genital Tract Infection, HIV, Microbiome, Maternal-infant immunity
Main Research Focus
Our lab seeks to identify correlates of HIV risk at mucosal surfaces, namely the infant gut and the adolescent genital tract; study the role of the commensal bacteria at these mucosal surfaces in modulating immunity; understand immunity of infants born to parents with HIV, who are uninfected yet have high risk of infectious morbidity and mortality; identify vaccination strategies that reduce HIV and other infections in infants born to parents with HIV.
Most Significant Paper Authored in 2024
Iwase, Saori & Osawe, Sophia & Happel, Anna-Ursula & Gray, Clive & Holmes, Susan & Blackburn, Jonathan & Abimiku, Alash'le & Jaspan, Heather. (2024).
We found that the gut microbiota differed between infants in South Africa and Nigeria, and that the certain gut microbes and maternal HIV were independently associated with tetanus vaccine immunogenicity.