Marygrace Duggar’s dream is to impact people’s lives through her research. A natural extrovert, she believed that her path was through clinical care, but she realized that by becoming a researcher she can provide a positive impact on more lives. She was drawn to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences because of our emphasis on the patient connection, even in research areas.
Duggar earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering with a focus in biopharmaceutical development in 2019 from the University of Kentucky. She was drawn to the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences because of her interest in exploring new treatment targets in T cell signaling to combat chronic graft versus host disease after bone marrow transplantation. She earned her master's degree from the St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in May 2021.
She currently works in the lab of Maureen McGargill, PhD in the Department of Immunology, where she works on T-cell development and function in chronic autoimmune conditions.
“I’ve always been very inspired by St. Jude’s commitment to curing children with cancer and catastrophic diseases,” she says. “I’m so glad to be part of a team that is so focused on our goal. It’s amazing to me how far we are willing to go to make even one child’s life better. We’ve come so far and there’s still so far to go, but at St. Jude I’m confident we will get there.”
Hometown: Baton Rouge, Louisiana