Stegman, Melanie Ann
Biography
Melanie Stegman, Ph.D. is Program Manager for the Immune Attack game development project. Stegman has 10 years of laboratory research experience and brings an in-depth knowledge of cell biology, protein and lipid biochemistry, and molecular interactions to the Immune Attack project.
Stegman earned her Ph.D. in molecular genetics, biochemistry, and microbiology from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. She studied a cell-to-cell signaling pathway called Hedgehog that causes birth defects and cancer in humans under David Robbins, Ph.D.
As a post doctoral scientist with Carl Nathan, M.D., at Weill Cornell Medical College, Stegman searched for chemical inhibitors of DNA repair in the human pathogen Mycobacteria tuberculosis.
As a graduate student, Stegman volunteered with Yeast Mutants as an Educational Tool -- a SEPA directed project that brought volunteer scientists and mutant yeast to middle schools and high schools, and took students and teachers to the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. During her post doctoral work, she taught after-school biology courses to high school students and guided weekend visitors through the process of DNA isolation in the education lab of the Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Stegman also wrote a children’s book about the lives of several amino acids trying to survive in a starving Salmonella bacteria cell.
Stegman maintains the blog “The Science of Immune Attack”.
