The UAB Department of Pathology is pleased to announce a new faculty member joining our team July 1. Filipe Cerqueira, Ph.D., joins the Division of Laboratory Medicine, led by Director Sixto Leal, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., as an assistant professor.
Cerqueira joins the department from the University of Texas Medical Branch Department of Pathology where he recently completed his fellowship training in Clinical Health and Microbiology. He received his doctorate degree in microbiology and immunology from the University of Michigan, where he gained extensive lab experience.
Among his accomplishments in the lab are identifying the need for a more sensitive test to identify Candida auris to control outbreaks within a multi-hospital system, and developing a molecular assay for the detection of C. auris in surveillance samples. At Michigan, Cerqueira worked as a graduate research assistant in the lab of Nicole Koropatakin, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, studying a resistant starch-degrading protein complex in the gut using structural biology and biochemical techniques.
In addition to his studies and lab work, Cerqueira is a champion of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, having co-founded a DEI Task Force at the University of Michigan, specifically addressing DEI issues in the biomedical research enterprise. During the COVID outbreak, he worked as a programming/organizing member of the Black Microbiologists Association.
Cerqueira has several articles published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and similar journals in his field. He has presented abstracts as posters and oral presentations throughout his career, since his time working as an undergraduate student studying microbiology at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2023 he was awarded as a Kavli Frontiers of Science Scholar by the National Academy of Sciences, recognizing exceptional early-career scientists. Cerqueira was both a Ronald E. McNair Program Scholar and a CDC Undergraduate Public Health Scholar.
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Cerqueira to the UAB Department of Pathology.