Lilia A. Mijares, PhD, MLT (ASCP)

Education

•  A.A.S in Applied Science with honors.  Victoria College. 1998
•  B.S in Microbiology with Special Honors in Biology. University of Texas at Austin. 2001
•  Ph.D. in Biomedical Biological Sciences,  Yale University.  2008  

• Postdoctoral Associate, Genetics and Molecular Biology Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH. 2008-2010
• American Board of Medical Microbiology (ABMM) Committee on Postgraduate Education Programs (CPEP) Microbiology Fellow, Clinical Microbiology, Microbiology Service, Department of Laboratory Medicine, NIH Clinical Center, NIH. 2009-2011

Dr. Mijares started her educational track with an Associate degree in Medical Lab Technology in1998 from a small community college in Victoria, Texas. During her undergraduate work she was awarded a NIH scholarship (UGSP), which she used to complete her Bachelor degree from the University of Texas at Austin on 2001. After spending a year working as a research associate at the National Institutes of Health, she started her graduate work in Microbial Pathogenesis. She completed her Masters degree followed by her Ph.D. from Yale School of Medicine in 2008.  She combined her post-doctoral work to span training as a post-doctoral associate with the  National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), Genetics and Molecular Biology Branch, and as a CPEP fellow (Committee on Postgraduate Education Programs) at the  Department of Laboratory Medicine, Microbiology Service, NIH Clinical Center. Dr. Mijares joined the faculty of University of Maryland in 2011 where she serves as the course coordinator for multiple undergraduate and graduate courses.

Dr. Mijares currently serves as the University of Maryland, School of Medicine representative to the Maryland Forensic Laboratories Advisory Committee (FLAC).

Clinical Microbiology, Microbiome, Skin microflora, MALDITOF, Laboratory clinical scientists, Molecular Diagnostics, parasitology, mycology, virology

Blosser SJ, Drake SK, Andrasko JL, Henderson CM, Kamboj K, Antonara S, Mijares L, Conville P Frank KM, Harrington SM, Balada-Llasat JM, Zelazny AM. Multicenter Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry Study for Identification of Clinically Relevant Nocardia spp.J. Clin Microbiolog. 2016 May; 54(5):1251-8. 

Zelazny AM, Ding L, Goldberg JB, Mijares LA, Conlan S, Conville PS,  Stock F, Ballentine SJ, Olivier KN, Sampaio EP, Murray PR, Holland SM. Adaptability and persistence of the emerging pathogen Bordetella petrii. PLoS One. 2013 Jun 4;8(6).

Conlan S*, Mijares LA*, Comp Seq Program N, Becker J, Blakesley RR, Bouffard GG, Brooks S, Coleman HL, Gupta J, Gurson N, Park M, Schmidt B, Thomas PJ, Young A, Otto M, Kong HH, Murray PR, Segre JA. Staphylococcus epidermidis pan-genome sequence analysis reveals diversity of skin commensal and hospital infection-associated isolates. Genome Biol. 2012 Jul 25;13(7):R64. (*) Co-first  authorship

Evan S. Snitkin, Adrian M. Zelazny, Clemente I. Montero, Frida Stock, Lilia Mijares, NISC Comparative Sequence Program, Patrick R. Murray, and Julie A. Segre.  Genome-wide recombination drives diversification of epidemic strains of Acinetobacter baumannii. PNAS. July 15 2011.

Mijares LA*, Wangdi T*, Sokol C, HomerR, Medzhitov R and Kazmierczak BI. Airway epithelial MyD88 restores control of Pseudomonas aeruginosa murine infection via an interleukin-1 dependent pathway. J Immunol. 2011 May 13. (*) Co-first  authorship.

Wangdi T*, Mijares LA*, Kazmierczak BI. In vivo discrimination of type 3 secretion system-positive and -negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa via a caspase-1-dependent pathway. Infect Immun. 2010 Nov;78(11):4744-53. (*) Co-first  authorship

Sutterwala FS, Mijares LA, Li L, Ogura Y, Kazmierczak BI, Flavell RA.  Immune recognition of Pseudomonas aeruginosa mediated by the IPAF/NLRC4 inflammasome. J Exp Med. 2007 Dec 24;204(13):3235-45