Melody Zeng, an assistant professor of immunology in pediatrics at the Weill Cornell Medicine Graduate School of Medical Sciences in New York City has been selected to receive the Aspire Award from the American Association of Immunologists. She will be honored at the association’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in May.
Dr. Zheng will be recognized for her research and contribution to the growing collective evidence that the gut microbiota regulates the immune system. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, she was among the first to discover that a class of antibodies called IgG recognizes gut bacteria for maintenance of host-microbe symbiosis in the intestine. Dr. Zeng established her lab at Weill Cornell Medicine in 2019.
“I am very honored and excited to be recognized with the ASPIRE Award,” said Dr. Zeng, who is also a member of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children’s Health at Weill Cornell Medicine. “The annual AAI Meeting is a preeminent conference for immunologists, providing a platform for trainees to showcase their research and to network. It is also where I gave my first national meeting presentation as a student more than 10 years ago, and it will be a sincere thrill to give a talk as an award recipient at this year’s event. This award also acknowledges the excellent training I received from my mentors, as well as the exciting research program that my amazing team works hard every day to build with tremendous support from many of my colleagues at Weill Cornell Medicine.”
Dr. Zeng double-majored in biochemistry and psychology at Stony Brook University in New York. She holds a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the Indiana University School of Medicine.