Jessica Brinkworth

Assistant Professor, Direcgtor of Evolutionary Immunology and Genomics lab

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

109 Davenport Hall, 607 S. Matthews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801

jfbrinkw@illinois.edu

http://jfbrinkworth.com/

Why do we get sick? Evolutionary immunology, immune variation, severe infections, sepsis, plague, E. coli, neutrophilia, farmwork, how your job affects immune function.

Research interests: Evolution of primate immunity, innate immunity, severe bacterial infections, sepsis, plague, Toxoplasma, host-pathogen interactions, immunogenomics, evolutionary medicine

My research addresses the physiological consequences of the human experience and evolutionary past, particularly those that affect innate immune system function.  Current projects focus on the functional divergence and diversification of primate immune systems, how past epidemics affect present day immune function diversity and how life experience affects the innate immune response.