Dr Fatema Tuj Saima is a PhD student in the Woodruff laboratory, starting in 2019. She has completed a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and a Master's in Medical Science from Yonsei University, South Korea. As part of her PhD project, she is investigating the role of the immune system in brain diseases including a hereditary neurodegenerative disorder called Huntington’s Disease (HD). She is investigating the role of an immune protein, called the NLRP3 inflammasome, as a possible therapeutic target for this disease.
She is also investigating the role of peripheral inflammasome activation in the severity and pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases.