Marlena Westcott

Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology , Wake Forest School of Medicine

Dr. Marlena Westcott is an Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Wake Forest School of Medicine. She is actively engaged in several areas of basic vaccine research. One project involves developing a safe and effective influenza vaccine for use in vulnerable populations such as infants and the elderly. She also studies the use of a nonpathogenic virus, vesicular stomatitis virus, as a vehicle for delivering proteins from disease-causing organisms to the immune system. Her recent vaccine-related research stems from years of experience studying how cells of the innate immune system respond to infection with pathogenic bacteria and viruses, and how those interactions translate to an immune response against the disease-causing organism. Dr. Westcott also enjoys being involved with Wake Forest School of Medicine science and health education outreach efforts that are coordinated through the WF Program in Community Engagement. She has been involved with several projects that are designed to partner Wake Forest faculty, students and staff with local K-12 students in the WS Forsyth County Schools system to enrich their learning in STEM areas. Additionally, in partnership with the North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research, where she is a recently-appointed board member, Dr. Westcott and colleagues have arranged for Wake Forest School of Medicine to host an Rx for Science Literacy workshop titled, “The Importance of Vaccines: Research Tells the Story.” The workshop for NC middle and high school teachers is sponsored by the Wake Forest Center for Vaccines at the Extremes of Aging (CVEA), the Wake Forest Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), and Northwest Area Health Education Center (NW-AHEC), and will take place at Wake Forest Biotech Place in July of 2017.