Yale Immunobiology welcomes two Pew Latin American Fellows

Two emerging scientists, Silvina A. del Carmen and Ileana Licona, have joined the labs of Yale immunobiologists as Pew Latin American Fellows in the Biomedical Sciences. The Fellows Program provides two years of funding to young scientists from Latin America to pursue research in laboratories and academic institutions in the United States.

Silvina A. del Carmen received a doctorate in biochemistry in 2015 from the National University of Tucuman in Argentina. During her training she worked in microbiology at the Center of Reference for Lactobacilli under the supervision of Drs. Jean Guy LeBlanc and Alejandra de Moreno. Last year, she started her postdoctoral training with Dr. Carla V. Rothlin at Yale. Her research interest focuses on the role that clotting plays during innate immunity, and the mechanisms that regulate these processes for an optimal immune response.

Ileana Licona received a doctorate in biomedical sciences and immunology in 2015 from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In July 2015, she became a postdoc in the laboratory of Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov at Yale where she is working on how allergens are recognized by the immune system and how these allergic responses can be regulated.

The Pew Latin American Fellows Program was established in 1990. Since then, Pew has helped advance the scientific careers of more than 200 past and present Pew fellows. Former Pew fellows can be found in leadership roles in research institutes throughout Latin America, where they are contributing to a vibrant and successful interdisciplinary scientific community.