Susan Pereira Ribeiro is a biologist with graduate and post-doctoral training in immunology and has over 20 years of experience in both the basic and translational aspects of immunology, with a focus on infectious diseases and cancer. In particular, she has studied HIV pathogenesis, progression, and responses to immune interventions to identify mechanisms underlying differential outcomes, such as responders versus non-responders to immune therapy.

Prof. Pereira Ribeiro has gained significant expertise and insight into the cellular and molecular aspects of HIV immune pathogenesis and immunotherapies, with a focus on HIV reservoir maintenance, immune-phenotyping, vaccine development, and immunogenicity assessments. Over the past several years, she has led studies aimed at understanding the mechanisms of HIV reservoir persistence and the lack of CD4+ T cell recovery in people with HIV who exhibit divergent clinical outcomes.

In collaboration with colleagues, she successfully identified and validated, through in vitro CRISPR-CAS9 approaches, genes downstream of IL-10 signaling that regulate HIV reservoir persistence. Additionally, through studies of HIV immune non-responders, she identified two mechanisms linked to poor CD4+ T cell recovery and the establishment and maintenance of the HIV reservoir.

During her time at Case Western Reserve University, she served as Director of the developing Immune Monitoring Core at the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. In this role, she oversaw immune evaluations in clinical trials for novel cancer therapeutics as well as in pre-clinical models.

As the lead investigator on several immune evaluation and analysis projects, she has developed substantial experience in data integration using multivariate models and has acquired a solid understanding of major immunological pathways influencing HIV pathogenesis and responses to other pathogens and cancers.

Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology at Emory University, where she leads several projects focused on HIV, COVID-19, and Down Syndrome in the context of immune monitoring.

Prof. Dr. Susan Pereira Ribeiro