Professional Bio
Robert Watson, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
The Watson Lab is broadly interested in regulation of host innate immune responses in macrophages during intracellular bacterial infection and the macrophage/Mycobacterium tuberculosis host-pathogen interface. The lab is particularly interested in how Mtb gains access to the macrophage cytosol and the consequences of cytosolic access on innate immune outcomes. They are also working to understand how mitochondrial damage alters innate immune outcomes; in particular, we want to know why human mitochondrial mutations confer susceptibility to mycobacterial infection. Watson Lab members ask these questions via bacterial and mammalian genetics in macrophages ex vivo and in a mouse model of infection.
Relevant Links
Publications
Education
MPH - Infectious Diseases - University of California, Berkeley, 2000
PhD - Microbiology - Yale University, 2006
Fellowship - Postdoctoral Fellow - University of California, San Francisco, 2014
Contact
Email
Kimryn.Rathmell@Vumc.Org
Address
777 Preston Research Building
2220 Pierce Ave
Nashville, TN 37232-6307