Karen Chachu is presently a student in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP aka MD/PhD program). She recently successfully defended her thesis “The role of adaptive immunity in vaccination and clearance of Murine Norovirus (MNV) infection” working under mentorship of Dr. Skip Virgin in the Department of Pathology & Immunology. She is particularly interested in viral immunology and pathogenesis, specifically, the nature of immune response to noroviruses. With her advisor, Karen determined the immune system components necessary for protective immunity in vaccination against noroviruses as well as how these immune components control the clearance of norovirus from the intestine and lymphatic system using a murine model of norovirus infection. During her graduate career, Karen was the recipient of an NIH National Research Service Award Predoctoral Fellowship as well as a UNCF-Merck Graduate Science Research Dissertation Fellowship. She was also a Washington University Infectious Diseases Scholar. At the present time, she plans on pursuing residency training in medicine, followed by a fellowship in either infectious diseases or gastroenterology with the eventual goal of a career in biomedical science research in molecular virology and viral pathogenesis.