Malú Gámez Tansey, PhD, earned her BS/MS from Stanford University and her PhD from University of Texas Southwestern and did postdoctoral work at Washington University on GDNF/Ret signaling. She spent two years at Xencor, where she co-invented dominant-negative soluble TNF inhibitors currently in clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease and COVID-19. Today, she is the Norman and Susan Fixel Chair in Neuroscience and Neurology and Co-Director of the Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville. Her lab focuses on the role of inflammation and immune system responses in brain health and mechanisms underlying development of neurodegenerative diseases. The long-term goal of her laboratory is to enable earlier diagnoses and better therapies to prevent and/or delay these diseases. Dr. Tansey is a fierce advocate for women and other under-represented groups in STEM and has earned several mentoring awards from students and faculty for these efforts.