Amanda Brinkworth, PhD
Assistant Professor, UNMC Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology
Amanda Brinkworth, PhD, is an assistant professor in the UNMC Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. Her research focuses on identifying mechanisms of survival and pathogenesis of bacterial pathogens. Her overarching research goal is to determine molecular changes that occur at the host-pathogen interface that can be therapeutically targeted to prevent colonization, dissemination, and disease associated with human bacterial infections. Recent work with collaborator and mentor Dr. Rey Carabeo at UNMC determines how the sexually-transmitted bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis is able to infect and survive in the nutrient-depleted differentiated layers of the ectocervical epithelium. This 3D-organotypic in vitro ectocervical model is based on an established in vitro skin model that utilizes fibroblasts and keratinocytes to stratify on a collagen matrix.
Working with an in vitro skin model prompted Dr. Brinkworth to revisit previous postdoctoral work on B. burgdorferi transmission with Dr. D. Scott Samuels at the University of Montana, where she was extensively trained in tick maintenance and mimicking the tick-rodent enzootic cycle. Taken together, her research training has uniquely positioned her to begin an exciting new independent project to investigate early B. burgdorferi infection of human skin following a tick bite.
Within our newly established Vector-Borne disease laboratory, with Dr. Sujata Chaudhari, Dr. Brinkworth has begun adapting the skin model by altering dermal layer thickness and introducing human blood under the rafts.
- BS: Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 2006.
- MS: Microbiology and Immunology, University of Louisville School of Medicine, KY, 2007.
- PhD, Microbiology and Immunology, University of Louisville School of Medicine, KY, 2011.
- Postdoctoral training on Borrelia burgdorferi transmission factors, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 2011-13.
- Postdoctoral training on Klebsiella pneumoniae antibiotic resistance, NIH/NIAID/Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, MT, 2013-15.
- Postdoctoral training on Chlamydia transcriptional regulation, Washington State University, WA, 2015-19.
- Chlamydia survival in the gential tract.
- Tick-transmission of pathogens in an in vitro human skin model.
- Bacterial pathogenesis, therapeutic development
- Graduate Student Educator Award, Department Pathology & Microbiology, UNMC, 2023.
- Great Plains Idea-CTR Early Career Investigator Program Award, 2022.
- George and Mary White Fund Award, 2022.
- National Institutes of Health LRP Recipient in Contraception and Infertility Research, 2017.
- Chlamydia Basic Research Society
- American Society for Microbiology
- Missouri Valley Branch, American Society of Microbiology