معرفی
Serap Aksoy is a Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health and an affiliated faculty member of the Yale Institute for Global Health. She leads groundbreaking research on tsetse flies and their role in transmitting African trypanosomes, which cause Human African Trypanosomiasis (Sleeping Sickness).
- Academic Appointments:
- Professor, Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases (Primary)
- Affiliated Faculty, African Studies
- Yale Ventures
- Education:
- PhD in Biology, Columbia University (1982)
- BS in Biology, Vassar College (1978)
Her research focuses on vector-parasite molecular interactions, symbiont-mediated immunity, and paratransgenesis—a strategy to engineer symbiotic microbes to block disease transmission. She has significantly advanced understanding of tsetse fly biology, symbiosis, and population genetics in Kenya, Uganda, and sub-Saharan Africa.
Recent publications highlight her work on Spiroplasma endosymbionts, tsetse genomics, and microbiome-mediated trypanosome resistance. A pioneer in neglected tropical diseases, she co-founded the PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal (2007–2020) and has received prestigious awards including election to the National Academy of Sciences (2021) and the Connecticut Technology Council Research Award (2016).
Her lab collaborates with institutions in Africa, China, Italy, and Turkey, emphasizing global capacity-building in bioinformatics and functional genomics. Contact: serap.aksoy@yale.edu | Lab: 203.737.4134
