Principal Investigator
Susan Ribeiro, PhD
Assistant Professor
Pathology Advanced Translational Research Unit
Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
View Faculty Profile | Publications
Dr. Ribeiro’s research focus is on infectious diseases and most recently in cancers. Trained as a system’s biologist, Dr. Ribeiro applies MULTI-OMICs platforms to understand the mechanisms underlying immune responses to diseases and immunotherapies in human cohorts. High-throughput tools are used to validate the major findings in vitro resulting in the development of specific drugs to be tested in non-human primates, being clinical trials the expected outcome.
BIOGRAPHY AND RESEARCH INTERESTS
Dr. Ribeiro was initially involved in HIV vaccine development in pre-clinical models and has expanded her research focus to System’s Biology in the past 6 years. Currently, Dr. Ribeiro is focused on the role of IL10 and other factors (such as microbiome, metabolome, drugs of abuse, etc) in the modulation of the immune system in HIV, cancers and COVID19.
EDUCATION
Dr. Ribeiro has major in Biology and has obtained her PhD from the School of Medicine at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, where she also has completed a postdoctoral fellowship focused on HIV vaccine development and immunogenicity evaluation in pre-clinical models (transgenic mice and rhesus macaques). She also has joined UCSF for part of her Post-Doc, extending her studies to HIV pathogenesis.
MANUSCRIPTS
Ribeiro Lab Members
Felipe ten Caten, PhD
Scientist, Asc Bioinformatics
Pathology Advanced Translational Research Unit
Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Felipe ten Caten earned his B.S. in Biology from the Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil, in 2011, and his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, in 2017. His doctoral research focused on small RNAs in Halobacterium salinarum, an extremophilic archaeon used as a model organism in Systems Biology. Using molecular biology techniques and high-throughput data (RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, and microarrays), he characterized the transcriptome and demonstrated the presence of intraRNAs—novel coding transcripts that overlap canonical genes—in this species and other members of the Archaea domain.
During his postdoctoral fellowship at USP, Dr. ten Caten applied his bioinformatics expertise to investigate the human transcriptional response to arboviral infections, including Dengue and Chikungunya, with a focus on identifying prognostic biomarkers linked to severe disease outcomes. He also contributed to COVID-19 research by analyzing clinical and laboratory data to better understand how factors such as age, sex, and disease severity influence disease progression.
In 2021, Dr. ten Caten joined the Pathology Advanced Translational Research Unit (PATRU) at Emory University, where he expanded his research into the immune response to infectious diseases using a Systems Immunology framework. Currently serving as an Associate Scientist at PATRU, his work focuses on the interplay between host and environmental factors—such as substance use disorder—in shaping the HIV reservoir, as well as on mechanisms of inflammation and immunosenescence in individuals with Down syndrome. His expertise includes data visualization, exploratory data analysis and integrative analysis of multidimensional datasets, including metabolomics, flow cytometry and multimodal single-cell and spatial transcriptomics data.
Fernanda Romano Bruno, MS
Visiting Fellow
Pathology Advanced Translational Research Unit
Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Fernanda obtained a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University Center of United Metropolitan Schools - UniFMU, Brazil (2005), and a master’s degree in Infectious Diseases from the Federal University of Sao Paulo - Unifesp Brazil (2010).
During graduation, she studied the Clinical Analysis, explored the graduation time to join the Skin Cell Culture Laboratory and the Immunology Laboratory II - Unifesp, where she carried out an internship project for studies on the cultivation skin cells and the applicability of Flow Cytometry in Immunology.
She worked in the School of Medicine (FMUSP) as member of the “Quality Control Unity” and was responsible for the development and implementation of Standard Operational Protocols (SOPs). Also, worked with high-density Flow Cytometry (panel development and optimization), as well as cell sorting for different projects to studies some Infectious and Immunology Diseases. She was member of the COVID-19 Vaccine Project of the Heart Institute (InCor), Brazil.
She has joined the Ribeiro’s Lab and PATRU team in 2021.
Tehillah Chinunga
Research Specialist
Pathology Advanced Translational Research Unit
Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Tehillah T. Chinunga obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Methodist University in Fayetteville, NC, where she developed an interest in infectious disease and oncology research. She later gained research experience in clinical microbiology and immuno-oncology at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis program at Emory University. Since 2022, she joined and has conducted research in the Chahroudi and Ribeiro/PATRU labs, focusing on host-pathogen interactions that influence human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) persistence in childhood. Based on a retrospective cohort of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)-infected infant rhesus macaques (RMs), she continues to investigate how the cytokine and metabolite profiles as well as thymic tissue, influence SIV reservoir dynamics and viral rebound. The study integrates unbiased quantification of plasma cytokines/chemokines by the mesoscale discovery (MSD) multiplex assay, untargeted metabolomics using high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (in collaboration with Metabolon) and spatial transcriptomics. Her current research interests include pediatric HIV and immunotherapy.
Perla del Rio Estrada
Visiting Fellow
Pathology Advanced Translational Research Unit
Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Dr. Perla M. Del Rio Estrada holds a Master of Science (experimental biology) and a Ph.D. in Science from the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM). Her graduate research focused on the mechanisms of neuronal death in Huntington’s disease, where she developed expertise in primary neuronal cultures, small animal models, histology, and protein analysis. During her doctoral studies, she also served as a professor in cell biology at UNAM’s Faculty of Sciences.
Dr. Perla M. Del Rio is a biomedical scientist with interdisciplinary expertise in neuroscience and immunology. Her early research demonstrated how cellular energy metabolism influences neuronal susceptibility to excitotoxicity. She later joined the Center for Research in Infectious Diseases (CIENI) at the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases in Mexico City, where she transitioned to studying immune responses in HIV infection. She is proficient in high-containment laboratory practices (BSL-2 and BSL-3), flow cytometry, cell sorting, and conducting functional in vitro experiments to assess immune cell responses. Her international research experience includes a fellowship at Emory University, where she investigated immune responses to Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) in non-human primates. Currently, her work focuses on the immunological dynamics within lymphoid tissues—key sites for HIV persistence. She has led and contributed to collaborative studies characterizing dendritic cells, CD8+ T cells, and T follicular helper cells, with leading institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania, Weill Cornell, Emory University, the University of Melbourne, and the NIH’s Vaccine Research Center.
Dr. Perla M. Del Rio’s ongoing research aims to uncover the mechanisms that sustain the HIV reservoir in secondary lymphoid tissues and to identify strategies to overcome immunological barriers to an effective HIV functional cure.
Giuliana Xavier de Medeiors
Postdoctoral Fellow
Pathology Advanced Translational Research Unit
Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Giuliana Medeiros obtained her Masters in Infectious Diseases from the Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora and her PhD in Biological Sciences from the Universidade de Sao Paulo. During her Masters, she investigated the role of lipid metabolism and inflammatory mediators in tuberculosis pathogenesis in a mice model. During her PhD, she studied the T cell response induced by different COVID-19 vaccination platforms on immunocompromised patients and older adults. Later, she joined Ribeiro’s Lab as a visiting scholar, where she collaborated with PATRU to elucidate the mechanisms of aIL10+aPD-1 treatment on SIV rebound in adult rhesus macaques. She joined Ribeiro’s Lab/PATRU as a Post Doctoral Fellow in 2023 to investigate the mechanism of HIV/SIV reservoir establishment and maintenance in infants using systems biology and multiomic platforms. Her current research interests include the role of metabolites in HIV/SIV reservoir seeding, investigating how the gut HIV reservoir impacts systemic inflammation and cardiovascular disease. Apart from HIV research, she is interested in the role of cellular metabolism in Down Syndrome.