Dr. Ni is a Transplant Infectious Diseases Fellow in the Division of Infectious Diseases where she is gaining expertise in the care of transplant/immunocompromised hosts and continuing her training as a physician-scientist. She received her MD and PhD through the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at Ohio State University, where her dissertation research explored effects of microRNA alterations in human macrophages during Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. She subsequently completed internal medicine training at Ohio State University, followed by infectious disease fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
As a KURe scholar, Dr. Ni seeks to address BK virus-associated complications in renal transplant recipients, including BK virus-associated ureteral stenosis and nephropathy, which are important causes of graft injury and loss. By integrating clinical factors and polyfunctional T-cell signatures associated with BK virus reactivation, her goal is to create validated risk prediction models to identify patients at risk for BK virus-related complications after renal transplantation, ultimately enabling tailored screening and immunosuppression strategies to improve outcomes. Her broader research interests extend to understanding interactions at the host-pathogen interface, with the ultimate goal of developing novel diagnostics and host-directed therapies for infectious diseases.