A native of Baltimore, Md., Winslow Yost joins the St. Jude Graduate School with a passion for research in infectious diseases, which are the leading cause of death in children worldwide. Yost is a graduate of the University of Delaware, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences.
Her introduction into the field of immunology-based research began when she accepted a role as a laboratory technician at the Center for Immunization Research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In this role, she and her team evaluated the efficacy of investigational vaccines against several bacterial and viral pathogens, such as Shigella, Zika and COVID-19.
After spending a year in this strictly clinical role, Yost realized her interests aligned more with studying the fundamental biology that was responsible for these various infectious diseases. This led her to accept a new position as a research specialist at the University of Pennsylvania. Her interest in host-pathogen interactions deepened during her time at Penn as she investigated the assembly of multimeric protein complexes, called inflammasomes, and how they play a critical role in initiating cell death, and mounting effective immune responses against pathogenic microbes. Yost assisted graduate students, as well as conducted independent studies, to gain an understanding of how these different cell death complexes regulate inflammation. These studies offered insight into broader inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, and how cell death can be host protective in many different scenarios during the course of infection.
Yost's motivation for joining the St. Jude Graduate School can be summarized by the institution’s mission: to advance cures and means of prevention for catastrophic diseases. She hopes to contribute to the institution’s mission by furthering knowledge on how to potentially fight against various pathogenic illnesses. The Department of Host-Microbe Interactions at St. Jude bridges clinical research and fundamental biological research into a unified program and she is excited to join this community and work towards advancing understanding on how microbes interact with host systems.
Hometown: Baltimore, MD
Education:
2021 BA, Biological Sciences (Minor in History) – University of Delaware
Publications:
Herrmann BI, Sillas RG, Campero MZ, Yost W, Peterson LW, Roncaioili JL, Rankin SC, Schifferli DM, Ravichandran K, Brodsky IE. Innate sensing of Salmonella SPI-2 activity during intracellular replication triggers caspase-8-dependent macrophage apoptosis . bioRxiv (2025). https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.09.10.675376
Peterson ST, Dailey KG, Hullahalli K, Sorobetea D, Matsuda R, Sewell J, Yost W, O'Neill R, Bobba S, Apenes N, Sherman ME, Balazs GI, Assenmacher C, Cox A, Lanza M, Shin S, Waldor MK, Brodsky IE. TNF signaling maintains local restriction of bacterial founder populations in intestinal and systemic sites during oral Yersinia infection. mBio (2025). https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01779-25
Bourne CM , Raniszewski N, Kulkarni M, Exconde P, Liu S, Yost W, Wrong T, Patio R, Khardashi M, Shosanya T, Kimbayashi M, Discher B, Burslem G, Taabazuing CY. A potent inhibitor of caspase-8 based on the IL-18 tetrapeptide sequence reveals shared specificities between inflammatory and apoptotic initiator caspases. ASC Bio and Med Chem AU (2025). https://doi.org/10.1021/acsbiomedchemau.4c00146
Wertman RS, Yost W, Herrmann BI, Bourne CM, Sorobetea D, Go CK, Saller BS, Groß O, Scott P, Rongvaux A, Taabazuing CY, Brodsky IE. Distinct sequential death complexes regulate pyroptosis and IL-1β release in response to Yersinia blockade of immune signaling. Science Advances (2024). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adl3629
Matsuda R*, Sorobetea D*, Zhang J*, Peterson ST, Grayczyk JP, Yost W, Apenes N, Kovalik ME, Herrmann BI, O’Neill RJ, Bohrer AC, Lanza M, Assenmacher CA, Mayer-Barber KD, Shin S, Brodsky IE. A TNF-IL-1 circuit controls Yersinia within intestinal pyogranulomas. Journal of Experimental Medicine (2024). https://doi.org/10.1084/jem.20230679