Leddy Owen

Owen grew up in Los Angeles, California and completed his undergraduate degree in Biological Chemistry at the University of Chicago, where his undergraduate research focused on biophysics and molecular microbiology. He then obtained his PhD in Biological Engineering at MIT. His PhD project applied mass spectrometry to identify which proteins from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (the causative agent of tuberculosis) are presented on MHCs by infected cells and could potentially be recognized by T cells, as well as to study mechanisms of antigen processing and presentation and optimize the design of tuberculosis vaccine candidates. 

Owen is now a postdoctoral scholar in the Liu Lab, where his work focuses on identifying determinants of protective and non-protective T cell responses to Staphylococcus aureus infection in order to inform the design of vaccine candidates and better understand how the host immune system interacts with pathogens that asymptomatically colonize the microbiome. In his free time, Owen enjoys reading and writing fiction (mainly sci-fi), running, and coding.