Principal Investigator

Melissa Mavers grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and completed her undergraduate degree in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Miami. She then entered MD/PhD training at Saint Louis University where she completed her graduate studies in the laboratory of  Harris Perlman, PhD. For her thesis research, she demonstrated a novel role for the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21 in suppressing macrophage activation and inflammation. Following Pediatrics residency at UCLA and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship at Stanford, she completed post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Robert Negrin, MD, at Stanford. In this work, she demonstrated that expansion and activation of regulatory T cells through death receptor 3 leads to a reduction in acute graft-versus-host disease in murine preclinical models. In 2022, Mavers joined the Department of Pediatrics at Washington University where she continues to focus her research on immune regulation of graft-versus-host disease. Outside of the lab, she enjoys supporting the Cardinals, going to festivals, and traveling.