Amie Eisfeld

Amie Eisfeld, a scientist in Yoshihiro Kawaoka’s lab in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences, in the School of Veterinary Medicine, is a molecular virologist whose research focuses on RNA viruses that have caused major epidemics or pandemics in humans, including influenza viruses and Ebola virus. Her principal interests are in understanding viral and host factors that regulate viral pathogenesis.

Dr. Eisfeld also collaborates with other members of the UW-Madison GHI to examine microbiomes in the human gut, with the goal of understanding how different cultural and socioeconomic factors and lifestyles affect the microorganisms that live in every human body. “Other research tells us that there are healthy microbiomes and unhealthy versions,” she says. “We’re trying to broaden our understanding of what’s a healthy microbiome and what we may have eliminated already in developed cultures.”