ASCI / Emerging-Generation Awards, 2023
The Emerging Generation Awards (E-Gen Awards) recognize post-MD, pre-faculty appointment physician-scientists who are meaningfully engaged in immersive research.
About the awardee
As a child neurologist, Mariko L. Bennett, MD, PhD cares for children with acquired and genetic neuroimmunological conditions. Her esearch focuses on understanding what microglia - the resident macrophages of the brain and spinal cord - do during development and in disease. During her MD/PhD at Stanford, Dr. Bennett defined the transcriptional identity of microglia and the dual contribution of the brain environment and unique developmental origin of microglia. She also co-invented a method to replace microglia with healthy surrogates, with the hope of developing new cell therapies for otherwise untreatable pediatric neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Bennett joined the Song-Ming lab at Penn where she has continued this work and more recently become interested in how microglia contribute to brain antiviral immunity and genetic interferonpathies.