Research
Dr. Scherer is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. She is also Director of the Hope Clinic Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit (VTEU) Research Laboratory and a full member of both the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis graduate programs in the Laney Graduate School. Dr. Scherer was recruited to Emory on March 1, 2020. Dr. Scherer received a bachelor of science degree summa cum laude in Chemistry from the University of Arkansas. Dr. Scherer pursued graduate studies at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, where she was awarded one of two inaugural Skaggs-Oxford scholarships to study at both Scripps and the University of Oxford in the UK. Dr. Scherer graduated with a joint PhD/DPhil degree in Biology from Scripps and Biochemistry from Oxford, the first student to graduate from this highly competitive program. After focusing largely on mechanisms of HIV inhibition by broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies for her graduate work, Dr. Scherer transitioned to cellular immunology research in HIV and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinology for her postdoctoral studies in the Department of Immunology at the University of Washington and in the Human Biology Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. Following her postdocs, Dr. Scherer transitioned to lead an antibody discovery team in biotech for approximately two years at Seagen, the then largest oncology therapeutics biotech in the Seattle area. Realizing her passion for infectious disease vaccine research, Dr. Scherer returned to this work by completing a prestigious Laboratory Leadership Service Fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) two years before joining Emory as faculty.
Research Interest Keywords
HIV broadly neutralizing antibody mechanisms; HPV cellular immunology; Infectious disease vaccine development; Antibody discovery and engineering; Vaccine and treatment evaluation methodologies.