Affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Emory University

Dr. Ozuna is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Emory Children’s Center at Emory University Medical School. Dr. Ozuna obtained a BS in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Ana G. Méndez University in Puerto Rico in 2010.  Following, she obtained two MS, in Biology (2014) at the Illinois State University and in Microbiology & Immunology (2016) at University of Louisville. Dr. Ozuna obtained her PhD in 2022 in the lab of Drs. Donald Demuth and Silvia Uriarte. Her work demonstrated that human neutrophils synthesize and release epinephrine and this is exploited by the oral pathogen Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans for growth and virulence. Dr. Ozuna is interested in the study of immunohormonal responses in disease pathogenesis, which she currently applies to cystic fibrosis (CF) in the lab of Dr. Benjamin Kopp. Her work investigates the effect of current CF modulator therapies on macrophages in combination with the novel compound AR-13.