The Story Collider is delighted to partner with Black in Immuno for this online storytelling show in which three storytellers from the Black in Immuno community will share stories from their personal life.

Reserve your FREE spot and watch below, or at this link.

Produced by Nakeysha Roberts Washington and Gastor Almonte.

Dr Bérénice Mbiribindi is a Principal Scientific Researcher at Genentech in the department of Translational Oncology focusing on Cancer Immunotherapy.

She completed her BSc in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Paris Descartes (Paris, France) and her MSc from the University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France). She received her PhD in Infection, Inflammation and Immunity from the University of Southampton (United Kingdom) studying Natural killer (NK) cells by investigating the impact of MHC-I peptide repertoire changes on NK cells functions.

Before joining Genentech, Dr. Mbiribindi was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stanford University – school of Medicine (Transplant Immunology Lab). Combining in silico and in vitro analysis, she was working on understanding the role of NK cells in the context of Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) latent infection and their involvement in EBV related complications.

She received the Transplant and Tissue engineering Center of Excellence leadership group Fellowship and the Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute Fellowship. Additionally, she has been awarded The Transplantation Society Young Scientific Investigator Award in 2018 for her work.

Beside her research, Dr. Mbiribindi did mentor several students in the lab and she is an active member in the Black In Immuno organization.

Ukpong Eyo was born in Nigeria to Nigerian parents, raised in different countries around the world but primarily in Nigeria, immigrated to the United States in 2003 for undergraduate studies at Northwest Missouri State University, graduate studies at the University of Iowa, postdoctoral training at Rutgers University in New Jersey and Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and as of August 2018 lead a lab in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Virginia School of Medicine conducting research on microglial cells and its role in the brain throughout life. His lab's research is done with colleagues (postdocs, grad students, lab technicians, undergraduate students and high school students) from nationalities across the world and various identities. He is a husband to an inspiring woman and together we parent four biological children (two boys and two girls).

Dr. Makeda Robinson earned her MD and PhD from Stanford University School of Medicine and is currently a Postdoctoral Infectious Diseases specialist at the University. She is a recipient of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Medical Fellowship and is a Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholar. Her current research, funded through the A.P. Giannini Foundation Fellowship focuses on understanding virus-host dynamics in the setting of emerging viral pathogens. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic she developed a research project centered on better understanding age-dependent differences in the immune response to infection and in parallel is working to spread evidence based information about COVID-19 through her column “Ask an expert” in Verywell Health.

Story Collider Presents: Black in Immuno