Dr. Sunita Seemanapalli

Dr. Sunita Seemanapalli has over 10 years of experience in biomedical research, particularly in field of Microbiology. She has a Medical Degree from the Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil. In order to better understand the basic mechanism of disease processes, she pursued graduate studies in the US. She earned an M.S. from Southern University, Baton Rouge, LA. Her Master's thesis focused on the levels of p53, a tumor suppressor protein in Human Cytomegalovirus-infected cells. She earned her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA. Her Ph.D. dissertation focused on the role of Outer Surface Protein C in the pathogenesis of Borrelia burgdorferi, the agent of Lyme disease. In March 2011, Dr. Seemanapalli completed one year of post-doctoral research at Texas A&M, College Station, TX, where she developed mutant and complementation strains of Borrelia burgdorferi expressing virulent genes.Dr. Seemanapalli worked at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in the Department of Human Genomics for 5 years. She also worked at the Hansen's Disease Center for about a year in research related to multi-drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis.   In reference to her teaching experience, Dr. Seemanapalli taught General Biology Laboratory courses as a Teaching Assistant at Southern University and as an Adjunct Instructor at the Baton Rouge Community College for one and a half years.In the Fall of 2011, Dr. Seemanapalli taught Microbiology lecture and lab course at Blinn College, a Community College located in Bryan, TX.   Dr. Seemanapalli won several awards for excellent powerpoint presentations at local, regional and national scientific meetings. She has a first author and several co-author papers published in several peer-reviewed journals, including in the Journal of Immunology. Her expertise is in the areas of Microbiology, Molecular Biology and Immunology. She is passionate about teaching Microbiology in an engaging and interest-captivating manner.