Alia Sajani

Noelle/Turk labs

Alia received her B.A. in Biology from Grinnell College in Iowa. During college she began her research career studying yeast genetics at Grinnell, and ventured into the intriguing world of immunology on a summer research program at Mayo Clinic. She was also a science writing intern at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. After college, Alia studied HIV pathogenesis in CD4+ T cells as a postbaccalaureate IRTA fellow at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Dr. Anthony Fauci's lab. Now, she is studying how the naive CD4+ T cell compartment, previously thought of as a uniform and quiescent population of T cells, is heterogenous. In the Noelle and Turk labs, she is using both computational and experimental approaches to demonstrate how varied naive T cells transcriptional states can influence T cell differentiation trajectories and functions. At Dartmouth, she participated in the Global Health Fellowship program, served on the executive board of the Dartmouth Writers Society, and was the campus representative for the New England Graduate Women in Science and Engineering consortium. She also writes and edits for Immunobites, an immunology blog focused on making new immunology findings accessible to the public. Alia is from Nairobi, Kenya and her interests are science writing, poetry, hiking and playing the piano. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion in science.

Contact

HB Hinman Box 7937

Selected Publications

  • Dina Rabadi, Alia A. Sajani, Randolph J. Noelle, and J. Louise Lines (2022). The role of VISTA in the tumor microenvironment. Journal of Cancer Metastasis and Treatment. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2022.06

    Livia R. Goes, Alia Sajani, Aida Sivro, Ronke Olowojesiku, Jocelyn C. Ray, Ian Perrone, Jason Yolitz, Alexandre Girard, Louise Leyre, Constantinos Kurt Wibmer, Lynn Morris, Giacomo Gorini, Genoveffa Franchini, Rosemarie D. Mason, Mario Roederer, Saurabh Mehandru, Marcelo A. Soares, Claudia Cicala, Anthony S. Fauci, and James Arthos (2020). The V2 loop of HIV gp120 delivers costimulatory signals to CD4+ T cells through Integrin α4β7 and promotes cellular activation and infection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2011501117

    Fatima Nawaz, Livia R. Goes, Jocelyn C. Ray, Ronke Olowojesiku, Alia Sajani, Aftab A. Ansari, Ian Perrone, Joseph Hiatt, Donald Van Ryk, Danlan Wei, Mia Waliszewski, Marcelo A. Soares, Katija Jelicic, Mark Connors, Stephen A. Migueles, Elena Martinelli, Francois Villinger, Claudia Cicala, Anthony S. Fauci, and James Arthos (2018). MAdCAM costimulation through Integrin-α4β7 promotes HIV replication, Mucosal Immunology, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41385-018-0044-1