Petya Dimitrova

Bio

Petya Dimitrova is an Associate Professor in Immunology at the Laboratory of Experimental Immunotherapy, Department of Immunology, Stephan Angeloff Institute of Microbiology, Sofia, Bulgaria. She worked in Rheumatology Clinic 3 at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany in 2000-2002. Her research work was focused on the mechanisms of human T helper cell differentiation. In 2007 she visited the Department of Human Physiology and Pharmacology, La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy for 6 months performing studies on the effect of JAK-STAT inhibitors in experimental models of systemic and chronic inflammation. Petya was the recipient of the Union of Scientists in Bulgaria’s Research Excellence Award in the field of medical and biological sciences in 2014. She was granted a Fulbright Scholarship for Academic Exchange in 2017 and spent three months visiting the Mayo Clinic’s Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Lab of Regenerative Medicine in Rochester, Massachusetts, USA. Her research interests have centered on the role of innate immunity, specifically neutrophils, in degenerative and inflammatory joint diseases, as well as novel approaches to controlling innate immunity in both acute and chronic inflammation. She is especially curious about how alterations in climate affect animals’ and humans’ innate immunity.