Research Fellow: Dr. Laura Jaeger

Post-doctoral Research Fellow

Dr. Laura Jaeger earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Missouri - St. Louis in 2001. She then went on to pursue a PhD in Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences at Saint Louis University. During her graduate studies, Dr. Jaeger conducted research under the guidance of her mentor, Dr. William A. Banks. Her graduate work focused on the role of the blood-brain barrier transporter, the low density lipoprotein receptor related protein -1 (LRP-1), in Alzheimer’s disease.

Now a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins in the laboratory of Dr. Avindra Nath, Dr. Jaeger’s research focuses on mechanisms involved in the trafficking of immune cells across one of the least understood barriers of the central nervous system, the cerebrospinal fluid-brain barrier (CSFBB). Currently, she is working to develop new models that will allow studies of the CSFBB in vivo and in vitro. In the future, these models may be used to conduct studies that will provide a better understanding of the contribution of the CSFBB to the development of neurological disease states such as multiple sclerosis and neuroAIDS.

Dr. Jaeger is also collaborating on projects with Dr. Joseph Steiner and Dr. Monique Stins of the JHU NIMH Center for Novel Therapeutics of HIV-associated Cognitive Disorders. In these projects, Dr. Jaeger uses human brain endothelial cell lines, tHBEC XIII and hCMEC/D3, to conduct studies on the permeability of various neuroprotective compounds across an in vitro model of the blood-brain barrier.