Sadiya Parveen-Nesson, PhD
Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Bachelor of Sciences (BSc): Dr RML Avadh University, Uttar Pradesh, India (Industrial Microbiology & Chemistry)
Master of Sciences (MSc): Dr RML Avadh University, Uttar Pradesh, India (Microbiology)
PhD: CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India
Postdoctoral Fellowship: Centre for Tuberculosis Research, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
News
August 2026: We received ~2.2 million DP2 New Innovators Award from NIH-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
August 2026: Sadiya gave a talk at Nutritional Modulation of Inflammation and Immunity meeting in Niagara Falls, New York
June 2026: Sadiya presented a poster at GRC Immunometabolism meeting in Portland, Maine
June 2026: The Parveen-Nesson Lab welcomes Wisdom Alonge as a research technician. We are thrilled to have you join the team!
June 2026: We welcome Grace Cooper as a SMART Program trainee in our lab. Yay!
June 2026: The Parveen-Nesson Lab welcomes Victoria Wootan as a PHIRE summer program intern.
May 2026: Parveen-Nesson lab’s first pre-print is out on BioRxiv. Wohoo!!
May 2026: Yingli presented a poster at Graduate Research Day 2026 at LSUHS Shreveport
April 2026: Parveen-Nesson Lab received $766,500 grant from CoBRE-Center for Lung Biology and Disease at LSU Baton Rouge
April 2026: Sadiya received 2026 AAI ASPIRE Award which recognizes very early career investigators for research accomplishments in their own labs.
April 2026: Sadiya gave a talk at Immunology2026 Annual Meeting, American Association of Immunologists, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
April 2026: Sadiya co-moderated a block symposium titled Immunological -omics Analysis at Immunology2026 Annual Meeting, American Association of Immunologists, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
March 2026: Parveen-Nesson lab welcomes Lesly as a lab technician to our team. Welcome to the team.
Feb 2026: Yingli won the best poster award at inaugural LSU system multi-CoBRE Colloquium organized at LSU Health Shreveport. Congratulations.
Jan 2026: Parveen-Nesson lab welcomes Michael Teve to our team. Welcome to the team
August 2025: Yingli was selected “Postdoc fellow of the month” by LSUHS Postdoctoral association
June 2025: Wisdom joined the team as a PHIRE Program summer student. So exciting!
June 2025: Yingli was selected for Career MODE Program by Columbia University with full scholarship
May 2025: Sadiya presented a poster at Immunology2025 Annual Meeting, American Association of Immunologists, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Mar 2025: The Parveen-Nesson Lab welcomes Md. Fakhruddin as a graduate student. We are thrilled to have you join the team!
Feb 2025: Sadiya presented a poster at Keystone Symposia titled Tuberculosis: Heterogeneity from Experimental Models to Human Disease in Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Jan 2025: The Parveen-Nesson Lab welcomes Dr. Yingli Shi as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome to the team
Jan 2025: Sadiya received a patent titled “Combination of a Treg Depleting agent and checkpoint inhibitor for use in cancer” for her work on cancer immunotherapeutics at Johns Hopkins University
Sep 2024: The Parveen-Nesson Laboratory for Tuberculosis immunometabolism research is open! We are actively hiring for graduate student, postdoc fellow and research associate. Please check “Contact Us“ for more information.
Research
Our laboratory primarily focuses on understanding how Mycobacterium tuberculosis perturbs host metabolic pathways in both immune and non-immune cell types at the single-cell level
My primary interest is identification and characterization of the immunometabolic pathways driving tuberculous granuloma formation and tuberculosis pathogenesis, using immune-phenotyping, metabolomics, and single-cell RNA sequencing. A better understanding of these processes will lead to the discovery of development of effective clinical tools for tuberculosis treatment.
Project 1: Characterization of the immunometabolic drivers of granuloma formation.
Tuberculosis is a highly complex disease, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). The complex interplay of alveolar cells, immune cells, and Mtb drives granuloma formation is schematically diagrammed in the figure. Granulomas are the pathological hallmark of TB and of the host's response to contain Mtb infection. The breakdown of the granuloma leads to the release and dissemination of infectious Mtb. As a result, understanding the precise immunometabolic processes that govern granuloma formation and function is crucial for developing better diagnostic tools, treatments, and vaccines. We are currently utilizing interdisciplinary approaches including microbiology, immunology, single-cell transcriptomics and metabolomics to approach this unique scientific problem.
Reference: Parveen S, Murphy JR, and Bishai WR. (2021). Targeting inhibitory cells such as Tregs and MDSCs in the tuberculous granuloma. Springer Cham. (Book Chapter)
Project 2: Determine the role of bacterial and host glutamine metabolism in TB pathogenesis
Glutamine metabolism upregulation has been associated with several bacterial, viral, and oncogenic diseases, yet its role is poorly understood in TB pathogenesis. While host immune cells may limit Mtb's access to glutamine as part of the immune response, Mtb alters host glutamine metabolism, potentially affecting immune cell function and the overall immune response to infection. My research goal is to understand the precise mechasnim(s) of how the host and mycobacterial glutamine metabolism influences TB pathogenesis. These new findings will have the potential to define unique targets that may result in new approaches to contain TB by either disrupting bacterial nutrient acquisition or improving the functionality of the host immune response.
Reference: Parveen S* and Bishai WR (2024). Role of Glutamine metabolism in tuberculosis pathogenesis: A mini review. Frontiers in Tuberculosis (In Press) (*co-corresponding author) (Review); Parveen S, Shen J, Lun S, Zhao L, Koleske B, Leone RD, Rais R, Powell JD, Murphy JR, Slusher BS, and Bishai WR (2023). Glutamine metabolism has dual immunomodulatory and antibacterial activities against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Nature Communications. PMID: 37973991 (Research Article)
Publications
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Shi Y, Vicens LR, Teve M, Slusher BS, Bishai WR and Parveen-Nesson S (2026). Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals that host Glutamine Metabolism Inhibition Enhances Macrophage Phagocytosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. bioRxiv. PMID: 42182385
- Parveen S* and Bishai WR (2024). Role of Glutamine metabolism in tuberculosis pathogenesis: A mini review. Frontiers in Tuberculosis (*co-corresponding author) (Review)
- Parveen S, Shen J, Lun S, Zhao L, Koleske B, Leone RD, Rais R, Powell JD, Murphy JR, Slusher BS, and Bishai WR (2023). Glutamine metabolism has dual immunomodulatory and antibacterial activities against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Nature Communications. PMID: 37973991
- Ordonez AA, Saupe F, Kasper CA, Turner ML, Parveen S, Flavahan K, Shin H, Artemov D, Ittig SJ, and Jain SK (2023). Imaging Tumor-targeting Bacteria using 18F-Fluorodeoxysorbitol Positron Emission Tomography, Journal of Infectious diseases. PMID: 37788499
- Parveen S, Lun S, Urbanowski ME, Cardin M, Murphy JR, and Bishai WR (2021). Effective host-directed therapy for tuberculosis by targeted depletion of myeloid-derived suppressor cells and related cells using a diphtheria toxin-based fusion protein. Journal of Infectious Diseases. PMID: 33955457
- Parveen S, Siddharth S. Chueng LS, Kumar A, Murphy JR, Sharma D, and Bishai WR (2021). IL-4 receptor targeting as an effective immunotherapy against triple-negative breast cancer. Molecular Oncology. PMID: 33682324
- Krug S, Parveen S*, and Bishai WR (2021). Host-Directed Therapies: Modulating Inflammation to Treat Tuberculosis. Front Immunol. PMID: 33953722 (*co-first author) (Review)
- Parveen S, Murphy JR, and Bishai WR. (2021). Targeting inhibitory cells such as Tregs and MDSCs in the tuberculous granuloma. Springer Cham. (Book Chapter)
- Parveen S., Bishai WR, and Murphy JR. (2019) Corynebacterium diphtheriae: diphtheria toxin, the tox operon and its regulation by Fe2 + -activation of apo-DtxR. Microbiology Spectrum (ASM Press). PMID: 31267892 (Book Chapter)
- Kumar P, Kumar A, Parveen S, Murphy JR, and Bishai WR. (2019). Recent advances with Treg depleting fusion protein toxins for cancer immunotherapy. Immunotherapy. PMID: 31361167 (Review)
- Cheung LS, Fu J, Kumar P, Kumar A, Urbanowski ME, Ihms EA, Parveen S, Bullen CK, Patrick GJ, Harrison R, Murphy JR, Pardoll DM, and Bishai WR (2019). Second-generation IL-2 receptor-targeted diphtheria fusion toxin exhibits antitumor activity and synergy with anti-PD-1 in melanoma. Proceeding of National Academy of Sciences USA. PMID: 30718426
- Kumar A, Parveen S*, Sharma I, Pathak H, Deshmukh M, Sharp JA, and Kumar S. (2019) Structural and mechanistic insights into EchAMP: A antimicrobial protein from the Echidna milk. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta-Biomembranes. PMID: 30951703 (*co-first author)
- Parveen S, and Reddy M. (2017) Identification of YfiH (PgeF) as a factor contributing to the maintenance of bacterial peptidoglycan composition. Molecular Microbiology. PMID: 28612943
- Singh SK, Parveen S, Saisree L, and Reddy M. (2015) Regulated proteolysis of a cross-link specific peptidoglycan hydrolase contributes to bacterial morphogenesis. Proceeding of National Academy of Sciences USA. PMID: 26283368
Inventions/Patents
Team
Positions
Post-doctoral Fellows
We are currently recruiting Post-doctoral Fellows. Please send your CV, cover letter and contact information of three referees to Dr. Parveen at sadiya.parveennesson@lsuhs.edu with the subject line “Application for postdoctoral researcher position”.
Graduate Students
Students interested in working in our Department should visit our Graduate Program.
Undergraduate Students
Our Undergraduate Biomedical Research Fellowship program provides bright undergraduates a chance to gain hands-on research experience through a paid internship. More information can be found at the Undergraduate Fellowship.
contact
Contact Us
LSU Health Shreveport
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
1501 Kings Hwy
Shreveport, LA 71103
Email: sadiya.parveennesson@lsuhs.edu
Office: 318-675-4351
