Tracey Freeman

  • 1st Year GS (MSTP)

Why did you choose the University of Pittsburgh?

I was first drawn by the amazing clinical and scientific training opportunities. Once I visited, I fell in love with Pittsburgh. I found that it has all the offerings of the major cities I've lived in, but is somewhere where businesses are local and you'll know your neighbors. Most importantly, I discovered that Pittsburgh has really unique class solidarity that comes from its history as an industrial/blue collar city. This tone is present throughout local culture and also manifests as incredibly strong activist movements. I feel challenged each day academically but rarely overwhelmed. The collaborative environment allows limitless opportunities to develop new skills across clinical and basic science disciplines. 

Education & Training

  • New York University, B.A. Biology, 2019

Research Interests

Virus-host interactions, innate immunity

Publications

Freeman TL, Zhao C, Schrode N, Fortune T, Shroff S, Tweel B, Beaumont KG, Swartz TH. HIV-1 activates oxidative phosphorylation in infected CD4 T cells in a human tonsil explant model. Front Immunol. 2023;14:1172938. PubMed Central ID: PMC10266353.

Kay K, Goodwin J, Ehrlich H, Ou J, Freeman TL, Wang K, Li F, Wade M, French J, Huang L, Aweeka F, Mwebaza N, Kajubi R, Riggs M, Ruiz-Garcia A, Parikh S. Impact of Drug Exposure on Resistance Selection Following Artemether‐Lumefantrine Treatment for Malaria in Children With and Without HIV in Uganda. Clin. Pharmacol. Ther. 2022. doi: 10.1002/cpt.2768.

Gil RM, Freeman TL, Mathew T, Kullar R, Ovalle A, Nguyen D, Kottkamp A, Poon J, Marcelin J, Swartz TH. The LGBTQ+ communities and the COVID-19 pandemic: a call to break the cycle of structural barriers. J. Infect. Dis. 2021; jiab392. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiab392. PMC9103180

Freeman TL, Andreou C, Sebra RP, Beaumont KG, Swartz TH. Single-Cell Characterization of Calcium Influx and HIV-1 Infection using a Multiparameter Optofluidic Platform. J. Vis. Exp. 2021; (171):e62632. doi: 10.3791/62632. PMC9201744

Soare AY, Freeman TL, Min AK, Malik HS, Osota EO, Swartz TH. P2RX7 at the Host-Pathogen Interface of Infectious Diseases. Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews. 2021; 85(1). doi: 10.1128/MMBR.00055-20. PMC7849353

Freeman TL, Swartz TH. Targeting the NLRP3 Inflammasome in Severe COVID-19. Front. Immunol. 2020; 11(1518). doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.01518. PMC7324760

Freeman TL, Swartz TH. Purinergic Receptors: Elucidating the Role of these Immune Mediators in HIV-1 Fusion. Viruses. 2020; 12(3):290. PMC7150916

Soare AY, Malik HS, Durham ND, Freeman TL, Alvarez R, Patel F, Satija N, Upadhyay C, Hioe CE, Chen BK, Swartz TH. P2X1 Selective Antagonists Block HIV-1 Infection through Inhibition of Envelope Conformation-Dependent Fusion. J Virol. 2020; 94(6):e01622-19. PMC7158726