Associate Professor Heather Jaspan

Division of Immunology

Affiliations

  1. Full Member, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine
  2. Division of Immunology, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences
  3. Professor, Department of Global Health and Pediatrics; University of Washington, Seattle,
  4. Member, Center for Global Infectious Disease Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
  5. 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

Longitudinal gut microbiota composition of South African and Nigerian infants in relation to tetanus vaccine responses.

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.