Megan Culler Freeman, MD, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics
- Division of Infectious Diseases
- Member of the i4kids
- Center for Vaccine Research
Education & Training
- BS Agricultural and Medical Biotechnology, University of Kentucky, 2008
- PhD, Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, Vanderbilt University, 2014
- MD, Medicine, Vanderbilt University, 2016
- Postdoc: University of Pittsburgh 2019-2022, Laboratory of Carolyn Coyne, PhD
Research Interest Summary
Research Interests
The Freeman laboratory studies picornaviruses with central nervous system tropism using human tissue models (organoids) of relevant sites derived from induced, pluripotent stem cells. Our current focus is on how enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) mediates acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), a polio-like illness, by using a novel human spinal cord organoid model. Our work is also supported by patient-derived samples (human cell and viral) to better understand how specific viral genotypes and specific host factors contribute to pathogenesis of this rare condition.
Publications
Woods Acevedo MA, Lan J, Maya S, Jones JE, Williams JV, Freeman MC, Dermody TS. Immune cells promote paralytic disease in mice infected with enterovirus D68. bioRxiv. 2024 Oct 14;. doi: 10.1101/2024.10.14.618341. PubMed PMID: 39463956; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11507732.
Aguglia G, Coyne CB, Dermody TS, Williams JV, Freeman MC. Contemporary enterovirus-D68 isolates infect human spinal cord organoids. mBio. 2023 Aug 31;14(4):e0105823. doi: 10.1128/mbio.01058-23. Epub 2023 Aug 3. PubMed PMID: 37535397; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10470749.
Freeman MC, Wells AI, Ciomperlik-Patton J, Myerburg MM, Yang L, Konopka-Anstadt J, Coyne CB. Respiratory and intestinal epithelial cells exhibit differential susceptibility and innate immune responses to contemporary EV-D68 isolates. Elife. 2021 Jul 1;10. doi: 10.7554/eLife.66687. PubMed PMID: 34196272; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8285104.
Bakhache W, Shen A, Symonds-Orr W, Freeman MC, Dolan PT. Novel reporter constructs to accelerate antiviral and therapeutic discovery for Enterovirus-A71. Antiviral Res. 2025 Mar;235:106094. doi: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2025.106094. Epub 2025 Feb 1. PubMed PMID: 39900143.
Jones J, Maya S, Yovel G, Ciomperlik-Patton J, Anstadt J, Freeman M. Recombinant B3 clade enterovirus D68 strains are efficiently rescued in 293T cells and infect human spinal cord organoids. BioRxiv. 2024 December; :2024.12.20.629498. doi: 10.1101/2024.12.20.629498.