Kassandra Arias-Parbul

Kassandra is from Irondale, AL, and attended the University of Notre Dame, where she earned her B.S. in Biology. She found her love for research during her sophomore year and fell even harder after her PARADIGM MD/PhD REU at the University of Alabama at Birmingham that following summer. She later attended Cornell’s Microbiology REU in an infectious disease lab, solidifying her interests in infectious disease, immunology, and host-pathogen interactions, and prompted her to apply to graduate school. After completing rotations in bacterial, viral, and fungal labs, Kassandra joined the Santiago-Tirado lab in the spring of 2025. She is currently working on understanding the relationship between C. neoformans and microglia, and why they are unable to control the infection alongside Robbi, but her main project involves studying the role of the lipid PI3P on the establishment of an intracellular niche in macrophages. When she is not in the lab, you can find her playing video games, reading, drawing, and sitting with her cat, Rex.

Publications:

• Ross RL, Arias-Parbul K, Douglass ZM, Adams KL, Santiago-Tirado FH. (2026) Use of a human immortalized microglia cell line to study recognition, phagocytosis, and intracellular survival of Cryptococcus neoformans. mSphere, 11(2):e0083825. doi: 10.1128/msphere.00838-25.
• Marrufo AM, Molina JJ, Gager C, Andersen MJ, LaBella AA, Lucas ER, Wongso E, Urmi T, Arias-Parbul K, Webster R, Stuckey PV, Kohler KN, Donahue D, Ploplis VA, Flick MJ, Castellino FJ, Santiago-Tirado FH, and Flores-Mireles AL. (2024) The catheterized bladder environment induces dysregulation of macrophage polarization exacerbating bacterial UTI. bioRxiv:2024.07.16.603761. doi: 10.1101/2024.07.16.603761.