Lora V. Hooper

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center


Primary Section: 42, Medical Physiology and Metabolism
Secondary Section: 43, Immunology and Inflammation
Membership Type:
Member (elected 2015)

Biosketch

Lora Hooper is recognized for her work on immune mechanisms that promote host-bacterial symbiosis. She is known in particular for her studies on antimicrobial lectins that defend the surface of the small intestine from bacterial invasion. These studies have led to a deeper understanding of how mammals maintain symbiotic relationships with indigenous bacterial communities. Hooper was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1967 and lived in Nashville until college. She graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee with a degree in Biology, and from Washington University in 1996 with a PhD in Biochemistry. She did her postdoctoral training with Jeffrey Gordon at Washington University, where she began her studies on the microbiota and its interactions with the immune system. In 2003 she joined the faculty of the Department of Immunology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She became an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2008 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015.

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