Growing up on the island of Puerto Rico, Ana Vazquez-Pagan saw firsthand how the 2009 H1N1 influenza (flu) pandemic impacted her home and the Carribean community. This experience inspired her to study influenza virus pathogenesis.
Vazquez-Pagan earned her bachelor’s degree in biology in 2018 from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. She is interested in host-virus interactions, specifically in the context of vulnerable populations and topical diseases.
Vazquez-Pagan currently works in the lab of Stacey Schultz-Cherry, PhD, Infectious Diseases. Her research topics include understanding influenza virus pathogenesis in the context of high-risk populations such as people with obesity and pregnant women. She hopes that her research informs innovative vaccine platforms. She earned her master's degree from the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in May 2021.
"Through every step of my research career, I have been working to gain more knowledge and understanding of what is currently being done, what needs to be done in the future and how can I help further those goals,” she says. “I want to help prevent the hardships caused by disease in its many forms.”
Hometown: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Publications
Vazquez-Pagan A, Schultz-Cherry S. Serological responses during pregnancy to natural influenza infection and vaccination: Implications of early life immunity. Invited review for special research topic: Microorganisms. Under review.
Virani NA, Kelada OJ, Kunjachan S, Detappe A, Kwon J, Hayashi J, Vazquez-Pagan A, Biancur DE, Ireland T, Kumar R, Sridhar S, Makrigiorgos, GM, Berbeco RI. Noninvasive imaging of tumor hypoxia after nanoparticle-mediated tumor vascular disruption. PLoS One 5(7): e0236245, 2020. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0236245
Mueller R, Yasmin-Karim S, DeCosmo K, Vazquez-Pagan A, Sridhar S, Kozono D, Hesser J, Ngwa W. Increased carcinoembryonic antigen expression on the surface of lung cancer cells using gold nanoparticles during radiotherapy. Phys Med 76:236-242, 2020. doi:10.1016/j.ejmp.2020.06.024
Vazquez-Pagan, A., Honce, R., & Schultz-Cherry, S. Impact of influenza virus during pregnancy: from disease severity to vaccine efficacy. Future Virology ;15(7), 441-453, 2020. doi:10.2217/fvl-2020-0024
Henley RY, Vazquez-Pagan AG, Johnson M, Kanavarioti A, Wanunu M. Osmium-Based Pyrimidine Contrast Tags for Enhanced Nanopore-Based DNA Base Discrimination. PLoS ONE 10(12): e0142155, 2015.