Sagi Shapira, Assistant Professor of Systems Biology in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, has joined the Columbia Initiative in Systems Biology (CISB). Dr. Shapira's research focuses on deciphering the genetic and molecular circuitry that is at the interface of host-pathogen interactions. The goal is to understand how this circuitry controls cellular responses to infection, imparts selective pressure on viruses and affects disease progression. A mechanistic understanding of these relationships will provide important insights into cellular machinery that control basic cell biology and will have broad implications in human translational immunology and infectious disease research.

Shapira received his PhD in immuno-parasitology under the guidance of Christopher A. Hunter at the University of Pennsylvania in 2005 and a Masters in Public Health at Yale University in 1999. He joins Columbia from the Broad Institute where he has a postdoctoral fellow.