Donata Vercelli

Education: 

• MD, University of Florence, Italy, 1978

Dr. Vercelli is a Regents Professor and has been elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Vercelli acts as a member of the Executive Committee and promotes interdisciplinary research on campus through the Arizona Center for the Biology of Complex Diseases, which she directs. Her research seeks to elucidate the impact of environmental, genetic and developmental factors on asthma and allergy pathogenesis. Her lab is especially known for genome-wide analyses of epigenetic modifications in neonatal immune cells linked to childhood asthma risk and mouse models of asthma-protective exposures, particularly those characteristic of traditional dairy farms. She is currently characterizing specific asthma-protective microbial strains and their metabolic products, and she is extending this work to the study of pharmacological grade asthma-protective microbial lysates.

Environmental research interests - asthma-protective factors provided by environmental microbes and microbial farm products and/or colonization with gut microbial communities from asthma-protected farm children