Marta Rodriguez-Garcia, M.D., Ph.D., joined the Wayne State University School of Medicine faculty as a tenured associate professor Aug. 1.

Her primary appointment is in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, with secondary appointments in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Division of Infectious Disease in the Department of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Rodriguez-Garcia will also serve as associate director of the Adult HIV Program.

Her lab is housed in the C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development.

Her research focuses on understanding the reproductive health consequences of HIV infection. Philip Pellett, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, and Gil Mor, M.D., Ph.D., scientific director of the Mott Center, said Dr. Rodriguez-Garcia’s pioneering work on the role of mucosal immunity during exposure to HIV infections and consequent effects on the female reproductive tract is highly relevant to research priorities that have been established in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, the Adult HIV Clinic and the Mott Center. “Moreover, Dr. Rodriguez-Garcia’s leading-edge science, which is focused on neutrophil function during HIV infection, has strong potential to add a new dimension and further depth to the revitalized broad-scale collaborative WSU Adult HIV Program,” they said.

Dr. Rodriguez-Garcia joins the School of Medicine from Tufts University School of Medicine, where she was an assistant professor of Immunology. She also served as a senior research scientist in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.

She received her medical degree from the University of Granada (Spain) in 2003 and her doctoral degree magna cum laude in Cellular Biology in 2009 from the University of Barcelona.

A member of the American Society for Reproductive Immunology, the Society for Mucosal Immunology and the Spanish Society for Immunology, Dr. Rodriguez-Garcia is widely published and is the principal investigator on two funded National Institutes of Health R01 research grants, an R21 grant and a newly-funded grant from the Burroughs Welcome Fund.