Description: Pathogens and Immunity is an open access journal publishing original research, commentaries and reviews that focus on microbes and/or host defenses with relevance to human health and disease.
Julie Segre, PHD: The link between math and biology, and the importance of collaboration In this interview with Pathogens and Immunity (PAI), Dr. Julie Segre, researcher for the National Human Genome Research Institute and expert in the field of skin biology, discusses the influences that formed her scientific career and the link between her background in mathematics and molecular biology.
She shares her experience developing the human genome project and how she evolved into studies focused on the microbiome and its impact on health and skin disease with PAI’s senior editors, Mahmoud Ghannoum, PHD, and Robert A. Bonomo, MD.
She says she enjoys transitioning into new areas of research and pairing her expertise with the expertise of colleagues to ask new questions. “I am comfortable being uncomfortable,” she says. As part of being a “good scientific citizen,” she says thinking about the translational aspect of how research will advance care is an important consideration when devising a study. “Don’t just think someone else will pick this up and try to communicate the findings,” she says, adding that she finds herself focusing no