Penny Shockett*

Penny Shockett, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, received a doctoral degree in Immunology at University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. This work explored the role of cytokines and DNA repair in Class Switch Recombination, which specifies antibody function in activated B lymphocytes. As a post-doctoral fellow and associate research scientist at Yale Medical School, Section of Immunobiology, she worked on an inducible gene expression system for transgenic mice, and on biochemistry of V(D)J recombination, which creates antigen receptor diversity. For 25 years at Southeastern, she has taught various courses including Cell Biology, Immunology, Virology, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Advanced Immunology, and Advanced Eukaryotic Molecular Genetics, and has mentored several undergraduate and graduate students in research projects related to these areas. Collaborations with students and colleagues at Southeastern include studies of aberrant V(D)J recombination, voltage-gated sodium channel structure and function, exercise immunology, and antimicrobial extracellular traps in different species. Some of these studies and resulting publications were funded by NIH R15 (AREA) Grants that fund institutions with limited direct NIH funding.