Sakila Nazia, originally hailing from Queens, New York is an MD-PhD student in the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD program. She is fascinated by how microbial pathogens can alter their physiology and metabolic programming to adapt to diverse cellular microenvironments and contribute to pathogenesis. As an undergraduate at Columbia, she worked in the Dietrich lab to study the metabolic alterations in Pseudomonas aeruginosa that contribute to biofilm-associated antibiotic tolerance. In the Rhee Lab, she is now studying the metabolic pathways involved in Mycobacteria tuberculosis’s adaptation to aerosolization during transmission. She is also collaborating with Adrian Jinich, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab, to use machine learning to predict the function of uncharacterized proteins in the Mtb proteome. In addition to microbiology research, Sakila is also passionate about combating health disparities and mentoring URM and FGLI students interested in medicine and science. Outside of work, you can find her watching Korean dramas, pretending to be a street photographer, or doing people’s henna at a random person’s shindig.
Science Twitter Handle: @SakilaNazia