MSTP students in the Sahoo lab
Medical Scientist Training Program
Ashley Brown

Ashley Brown

G4 Student

Faculty Advisor

  • Weiguo Cui, PhD, Microbiology & Immunology

Locations

  • Medical Scientist Training Program

Contact Information

Education

MS, Biology, Boston College, 2014
BS, Biology, Boston College, 2014

Research Interests

Immunology, autoimmunity, geroscience

Research Experience

Medical College of Wisconsin, 2020-present
Advisor: Weiguo Cui, PhD
Project: Requirement of PIM1 for CD8 T cell cytotoxicity in type 1 diabetes (F30DK132807).

Mayo Clinic, Robert & Arlene Kogod Center on Aging, 2016-2018
Advisor: Nathan LeBrasseur, PhD
Project: Developing a standardized battery of clinically relevant resilience challenges and outcome measures to assess healthy aging.

Boston College, 2014-2016 (MS)
Advisor: Thomas Seyfried, PhD
Thesis: Investigating the effect of energy substrates and LPS-activation on the in vitro energy metabolism of BV-2, RAW264.7, and VM-M3 cells.

Boston College, 2012-2014 (BS)
Advisor: Thomas Seyfried, PhD
Project: Etomoxir induced triglyceride accumulation and reduced energy production in murine glioblastoma cells.

The Hormel Institute, Nutrition and Metabolism, 2012
Advisor: Margot Cleary, PhD
Project: Protein and lipid oxidative damage in breast cancer.

Publications

Kasmani MY, Ciecko AE, Brown AK, Petrova G, Gorski J, Chen YG, Cui W. Autoreactive CD8 T cells in NOD mice exhibit phenotypic heterogeneity but restricted TCR gene usage. Life Sci Alliance. 2022 Jun 6;5(10):e202201503. doi: 10.26508/lsa.202201503. PMID: 35667687; PMCID: PMC9170949.

Volberding PJ, Xin G, Kasmani MY, Khatun A, Brown AK, Nguyen C, Stancill JS, Martinez E, Corbett JA, Cui W. Suppressive neutrophils require PIM1 for metabolic fitness and survival during chronic viral infection. Cell Rep. 2021 May 25;35(8):109160. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109160. PMID: 34038722; PMCID: PMC8182757.

Topchyan P, Zander R, Kasmani MY, Nguyen C, Brown A, Lin S, Burns R, Cui W. Spatial transcriptomics demonstrates the role of CD4 T cells in effector CD8 T cell differentiation during chronic viral infection. Cell Rep. 2022 Nov 29;41(9):111736. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111736. PMID: 36450262; PMCID: PMC9792173.

Schafer MJ, Zhang X, Kumar A, Atkinson EJ, Zhu Y, Jachim S, Mazula DL, Brown AK, Berning M, Aversa Z, Kotajarvi B, Bruce CJ, Greason KL, Suri RM, Tracy RP, Cummings SR, White TA, LeBrasseur NK. The senescence-associated secretome as an indicator of age and medical risk. JCI Insight. 2020 Jun 18;5(12):e133668. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.133668. PMID: 32554926; PMCID: PMC7406245.

Schafer MJ, Mazula DL, Brown AK, White TA, Atkinson E, Pearsall VM, Aversa Z, Verzosa GC, Smith LA, Matveyenko A, Miller JD, LeBrasseur NK. Late-life time-restricted feeding and exercise differentially alter healthspan in obesity. Aging Cell. 2019 Aug;18(4):e12966. doi: 10.1111/acel.12966. Epub 2019 May 21. PMID: 31111669; PMCID: PMC6612646.

Flores RE, Brown AK, Taus L, Khoury J, Glover F, Kami K, Sarangarajan R, Walshe TE, Narain NR, Kiebish MA, Shelton LM, Chinopoulos C, Seyfried TN. Mycoplasma infection and hypoxia initiate succinate accumulation and release in the VM-M3 cancer cells. Biochim Biophys Acta Bioenerg. 2018 Sep;1859(9):975-983. doi: 10.1016/j.bbabio.2018.03.012. Epub 2018 Mar 23. PMID: 29580805. 

Meeting Abstracts

Brown AK, Shen J, Volberding PJ, Cui W. 2023. PIM kinases are essential for CD8 T cell effector function and metabolism during chronic viral infection. J Immunol 210: 236.18 (Abstr.)

Brown AK, Shen J, Volberding PJ, Cui W. PIM kinases are essential for CD8 T cell effector function and metabolism during chronic viral infection. Oral Presentation. Autumn Immunology Conference. Chicago, IL. November 18-21, 2022.

Brown AK, Mazula DL, Zhang B, Roos CM, White TA, Miller RA, Miller JD,LeBrasseur NK. (2018) Physical Resilience as a Determinant of Healthy Aging. The FASEB Journal 32, 674.677-674.677

Brown AK, Martínez-Gálvez G, Coffman KE, Matchett WE, and Horazdovsky BF (2018) Twin Talk Series: A novel method to foster peer-to-peer pedagogical training. The FASEB Journal 32, 535.526-535.526

Brown AK, Ta L, Flores R, Seyfried TN. Etomoxir Induced Triglyceride Accumulation and Reduced Energy Production in Murine Glioblastoma Cells [abstract]. In: SACNAS East Coast Regional Meeting. March 28 2015. Chestnut Hill, MA

General Interests

Running, cycling, pedagogy, and classical studies