Rate My Professor Marijke Keestra-Gounder

Marijke Keestra-Gounder, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus School of Medicine, where she also serves as Co-Director of the Microbiology Graduate Program. She earned her doctoral degree in 2008 from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology. She then pursued postdoctoral research from 2008 to 2012, followed by a project scientist position from 2012 to 2016, in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, Davis, in the laboratories of Drs. Andreas Bäumler and Renée Tsolis. In 2016, she joined the faculty at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

Her research specializes in infectious disease microbiology, focusing on pathways of innate immunity that distinguish harmless microbes from pathogens. She explores the interplay between endoplasmic reticulum stress and NOD1/NOD2 signaling in infection models including Citrobacter rodentium and Salmonella Typhimurium. NOD1 and NOD2, pattern recognition receptors that detect bacterial peptidoglycans from Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, also sense ER stress, a mechanism particularly relevant in the intestinal tract where mutations in these pathways increase susceptibility to colitis. Notable publications include "Inflammasome activation by Gram-positive bacteria: Mechanisms of activation and regulation" (Frontiers in Immunology, 2023), "NOD1 and NOD2: Beyond Peptidoglycan Sensing" (Trends in Immunology, 2017), "IRE1α-Driven Inflammation Promotes Clearance of Citrobacter rodentium Infection" (Infection and Immunity, 2022), "Nitrate-mediated luminal expansion of Salmonella Typhimurium is dependent on the ER stress protein CHOP" (bioRxiv, 2023), "NOD2 modulates MDA5 signaling to promote coxsackievirus B3 replication" (bioRxiv, 2025), "Antimicrobial overproduction sustains intestinal inflammation by inhibiting Enterococcus colonization" (Cell Host & Microbe, 2023), and "NOD1/NOD2 and RIP2 Regulate Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress-Induced Inflammation during Chlamydia Infection" (mBio, 2020). Her contributions advance understanding of inflammation regulation and pathogen clearance in microbial infections.