Photography by Joshua Franzos
From a young age, Rachel Gottschalk, assistant professor of immunology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, was drawn to biology, but her passion for immunology developed serendipitously.
Looking for an undergraduate research opportunity, Gottschalk found it when she least expected—during orchestra practice. She overheard a student mention an opening and applied immediately.
“I would have probably jumped on any research opportunity,” Gottschalk recollects. “It just happened to be an immunology lab—but as soon as I started working in immunology, I saw it was very dynamic, and I found that very exciting.”
Gottschalk was captivated by the way immune cells could communicate with one another, make “decisions” and coordinate an arc of biological responses.
“Understanding how these cells sense complicated cues and then ‘decide’ what responses are needed has been central to my career,” says Gottschalk.
Determined to understand their “language,” Gottschalk dreams of developing a fluency that would allow for early detection and correction of cellular miscommunications by fine-tuning cell responses, like adjusting a dial.
“That's really the difference between a healthy response and a disease response,” says Gottschalk. “We are working toward an understanding of cellular communication that is sophisticated enough that we can modulate responses in a very specific manner.”
Although she never anticipated working in computational biology, the network-like complexity of these signals led her toward systems biology to identify the cues immune cells respond to and annotate how these signals evolve as responses peak and resolve.
“There's a ton of different components to immune responses—so, to target something with any sort of specificity, you have to understand all the inputs and their integration.”
Over the coming years, she aims to leverage these inputs and outputs to develop precise ways to fine-tune cellular functions, moving therapies beyond broadly eliminating disease-causing cellular functions.
On March 14, Gottschalk will be presenting her latest work as part of the 2025 Senior Vice Chancellor Research Seminars. Join the lecture here.
The annual Senior Vice Chancellor Research Seminar series, also known as the 12@12 series, focuses on research by young investigators in the biomedical sciences. Selection criteria include a nomination from a senior faculty member and involvement in a research project that fits into one of four categories: cutting-edge fundamental research, discoveries and advances with translational and patient care potential, implementation science and health care quality, or research based on counter-paradigmatic ideas and discoveries.
Lectures will be held virtually at noon on Fridays throughout 2025. Each lecture will be approximately 50 minutes long and will conclude with a short question-and-answer session.