Keyla Sá, Ph.D.

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Keyla Sá, Ph.D.
Keyla Sá, Ph.D.
Title
Postdoctoral fellow
Department
Immunobiology
Institution
Yale University School of Medicine
Address
300 Cedar St.
City, State, ZIP
New Haven, CT 06519
Phone
203-785-7662
Email
[email protected]
Website
https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/keyla-sa/
Research field
Virology; Immunology
Award year
2023
Country of origin
Brazil
Mentor name
Akiko Iwasaki, Ph.D.

Research

In the Iwasaki lab, I aim to understand how autoantibodies (AAB) can be pathogenic and lead to the development of neurological symptoms. Infections are known to trigger the production of antibodies as a natural response to clear the pathogen, with an inevitable rise in autoreactivity that results from the diversification and expansion of antibody families during the course of infection. Normally, these antibody populations contract as the immune system returns to a healthy set-point and only a fraction of the pathogen-targeted antibodies are preserved in the compartment where the immune system maintains immunologic memory. However, several reports have shown that AAB can be associated with several post-acute infection syndromes (PAIS), such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, long Lyme Disease and post-acute sequelae of COVID-19. My work will be translational and interdisciplinary, leveraging immunology, neuroscience, and machine-learning techniques to determine the neuroimmunology mechanisms that are associated with PAIS. By defining the mechanism through which AABs can cause neurological symptoms, and identifying a robust set of tests that can be deployed to reveal these pathological autoreactivities, we will enable the diagnosis and treatment of this patient population.

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