Our Team
Anya O’Neal, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Anya obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She performed her doctoral research with Dr. Joao Pedra, where she studied tick-borne diseases and characterized a receptor for the Immune Deficiency (IMD) pathway in ticks. Then, she completed postdoctoral work with Dr. Justin Perry at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center studying how solute carrier (SLC) transporters regulate apoptotic cell clearance by macrophages.
In 2025, Anya started her independent research group in the Lyme and Tickborne Diseases Institute (LTBDI) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Ye Liu, Ph.D.
Laboratory Manager
Ye received her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from The Ohio State University. She then conducted her postdoctoral studies at The Jackson Laboratory and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), where she researched neurodegeneration and developmental roles of thyroid hormone, respectively. Ye manages the laboratory and studies how blood feeding influences hemocyte differentiation and metabolism.