The 2025 Dare to Discover campaign, sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research, celebrates the innovative work of researchers, scholars, and creators from across the University of Iowa. This year, two exceptional students associated with the Department of Microbiology and Immunology have been highlighted for their contributions to their respective fields.

Kai Rogers, MD, PhD, a medical resident in pathology and a former Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) student mentored by Dr. Wendy Maury in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, is now studying under Dr. Nitin Karandikar in the Department of Pathology. The Karandikar lab studies multiple sclerosis (MS), a disorder where the body’s immune system attacks the coating around nerves, causing progressive neurologic damage. While many MS treatments exist, they often do not provide results for patients or they cause intolerable side effects. Rogers is working to apply extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP), a poorly understood but well-tolerated therapy, to MS and other autoimmune disorders. If effective, it would expand treatment options available to MS patients, especially those who have failed at other treatments, and potentially expand the reach of ECP to treat other, similar disorders.

Rogers plans to continue pursuing research, hopefully as the principal investigator of a lab, while also practicing transfusion medicine.

Taylen Nappi, PhD student guided by faculty mentor Dr. Noah Butler, examines how shifts in immune cell metabolism can affect resistance to Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria. In areas of malaria transmission, individuals infected with malaria do not develop lasting immunity to the parasite, allowing them to become infected again each season. The cellular processes that contribute to this lack of durable immunity are not well understood. Nappi is investigating how Plasmodium disturbs metabolic systems in the host’s immune cells, triggering this short-lived protection. Malaria still threatens up to a third of the world’s population, and the disease is not responsive to many treatments. Nappi’s research aims to make new treatments for malaria possible.

After graduation, Nappi would like to teach college courses while either pursuing a postdoctoral position or moving into the private sector of scientific research.