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Our Mission
Our Mission
The de Oliveira Lab is a whole-organism immunology laboratory focused on understanding how neutrophils integrate local and systemic signals over time. By studying immune behavior in vivo, we reveal how inflammatory context shapes biological outcomes across health and disease.
When You Can See Decisions, You Can Change Outcomes.
When You Can See Decisions, You Can Change Outcomes.
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Why This Matters
Why This Matters
Millions of people live with persistent low-grade inflammation driven by metabolic imbalance (metainflammation), aging (inflammaging), environmental and lifestyle stressors, or genetic predisposition. These chronic inflammatory states quietly reshape immune behavior long before symptoms appear, altering how the body responds to injury, infection, and disease and influencing long-term outcomes.
By the time pathology is detected, many of the most consequential immune behaviors have already been established.
What We Reveal
What We Reveal
Rather than studying inflammation at static endpoints, we focus on immune behavior as a dynamic process. Our work reveals how inflammatory context is translated into coordinated immune programs that shape long-term biological outcomes, including tissue repair, immune dysfunction, and disease progression.
This framework allows us to understand not just what goes wrong in disease, but how immune behavior is redirected over time.
Why This Is Hard To See
Why This Is Hard To See
Neutrophils are fast, adaptive, and highly responsive cells whose behavior changes continuously depending on context. They integrate signals from injured tissues, circulating factors, and distant organs—often within minutes. Capturing how these competing signals are prioritized, particularly under chronic systemic inflammation, requires approaches that preserve spatial, temporal, and organism-wide complexity.
For this reason, our work relies on non-invasive, whole-organism, real-time strategies that allow immune behavior to be observed as it unfolds in vivo.
Why Zebrafish
Why Zebrafish
We use the zebrafish as our primary in vivo system because it uniquely enables longitudinal, whole-body visualization of immune behavior at cellular resolution. As a genetically tractable and optically accessible vertebrate, the zebrafish allows us to study immune coordination across tissues repeatedly and non-invasively—capabilities not achievable in other systems.
To ensure translational relevance, we integrate these studies with experiments using primary human neutrophils and human disease datasets, directly linking in vivo immune behavior to human immune function and pathology.
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de Oliveira Lab News & Accomplishments
de Oliveira Lab News & Accomplishments
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2025
• Cassia Michael – Selected for Talk at 2025 European Phagocyte Workshop (Madrid, Spain)
• Cassia Michael – Liang Zhu Traveling Fellowship & Liang Zhu Award
• Maria Feliz Norberto – GRC Carl Storm Award to attend GRC Phagocyte Meeting (New Hampshire, USA)
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Selected for the Scholar Mentoring & Development Program (SMDP)
• Joaquin Canton Sandoval – Best Poster presentation, 2025 European Phagocyte Workshop (Madrid, Spain) • Cassia Michael et. al – “Metainflammation alters neutrophil function and migration in vivo in response to tissue injury.” J Leukoc Biol. doi: 10.1093/jleuko/qiaf094; PMID: 40557998. 2025
• Jaewon Kim – Selected for PhD in Clinical Investigation Program at Einstein (NIH Training grant supported CTSA)
• Jaewon Kim – Awarded NIH CTSA Training Grant T32TR004537
• Juliana M. Gomes-Mendonca – Selected for Talk at MECCC Retreat
• Juliana M. Gomes-Mendonca – Selected for Talk at ZDM18 (Boston, USA)
• Juliana M. Gomes-Mendonca – Liang Zhu Traveling Fellowship
2024
• Sammi Chung – Awarded NIH Training Grant T32AG023475-19 (PI Barzilai, Nir)
• Cassia Michael – Honors Prize of Society Leukocyte Biology Image Contest 2024
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Awarded NIH/NHLBI F31HL172393
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Selected for Talk at Neutrophil 2024 Symposium (Munich, Germany)
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Liang Zhu Traveling Fellowship & Liang Zhu Award
• Dr. Joaquin Canton Sandoval, PhD – Selected for Talk SLB 2024 (Michigan, USA)
• Cassia Michael – Selected for Session Chair at SLB 2024 (Michigan, USA)
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Best Talk at Neutrophil 2024 Symposium (Munich, Germany)
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Selected for Talk MECCC DEI Symposium (Bronx, USA)
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Recognition Award ASH 2024 (San Diego, USA)
2023
• Joaquin Canton Sandoval – Selected for Session Talk at European Phagocyte Meeting
• Cassia Michael – 3rd Prize Society Leukocyte Biology Image Contest
• Cassia Michael – Awarded NIH Training Grant T32 GM145438-01A2 (PI Query, C)
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Selected for Session Talk ZDM16
• Sammi Chung – Selected for Session Talk ZDM16
• Sammi Chung – Dennis Shield DMB Travel Award
• Achalefac Akem – Selected for RIG Session Talk ZDM16
2022
• Maria and Sammi passed their Quals!!! Congratulations • Maria Feliz Norberto – Awarded ASH Minority Graduate Student Award
• Mariana Abrantes do Amaral – Flash Talk at FASEB: Liver Biology Conference (USA)
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Selected for Session Talk ZDM15
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Travel Award ZDM15
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Dennis Shield DMB Travel Award
• Joaquin Canton Sandoval – Selected for Session Talk Neutrophil Symposium 2023
• Dr. Francisco Juan Martinez Navarro – Awarded a Sara Borrell grant to return to Spain
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Liang Zhu Traveling Fellowship
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Liang Zhu Award
•Sofia is on YouTube to talk about our work in liver disease field. Go and check this Zebrafish Webinar 2022 Day 3 (Afternoon). Her talk starts @ 3h30min of the video https://youtu.be/uTS9I72ift8
2021
• Sofia is on YouTube as a lecturer at the "VII Simpósio Zebrafish como Modelo Animal de Pesquisa" to talk about our latest work on NAFLD and neutrophilic inflammatory response. Go and check the lecture!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTFui_ZI5-M
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Awarded NIH Training Grant T32 GM007491 (PI Query)
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Einstein nominee for the HHMI Gilliam Fellowship
• Maria Feliz Norberto – Selected for Infection/Immunity RIG-Talk ZDM14
• Cassia Michael – Selected for Cancer RIG-Presentation ZDM14
• Dr. Francisco Juan Martinez Navarro – Selected for Cancer RIG-Talk ZDM14
• Sofia is on YouTube to talk about our amazing research on neutrophils with the best model ever the Zebrafish!! Go and check this Zebrafish Webinar!! Her talk starts @ 1h40min of the video https://youtu.be/fQHNW7pDSqs
2020
• Dr. Francisco Juan Martinez Navarro – CRI Postdoctoral Fellowship
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