Eden Faneuff is from Southern California and received her bachelor's at UC Santa Cruz and and master's from Cal Poly Pomona. For her masters degree, she was on the influenza team in the lab of Dr. Jill Adler-Moore, and her thesis work involved characterizing the protective innate response of liposomes with adjuvant only against influenza infections.
Faneuff is a fifth year graduate student in the Microbe-Host Interactions graduate program in the Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology Department. Her research focuses on innate host defense and inflammation during sepsis. Her focus is on the tumor suppressor protein, phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), which can modulate mitochondrial and cellular metabolism, as well as regulate cellular effector functions via the PI3K/Akt/mTORC1 pathways in macrophages.
Our research aims to unveil a new regulatory axis involving different processes (phosphatase activation, bacterial killing, inflammasome activation, along with fatty acid generation and oxidation) that regulates homeostatic events and, when alternated, leads to an exaggerated inflammatory response that culminates in organ damage and mortality during sepsis.
Outside of the lab Eden enjoys reading, camping, the beach, video games, watching scary movies, and going on vacation with her husband Sam.