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          About NIAMS
          Alexandra Firek, B.S.





Alexandra Firek, B.S.


Medical Student Research Fellow
    Cutaneous Microbiome and Inflammation Section Image
              Headshot of a young woman with long hair, smiling. 
            Contact Information

                                
                                                10 Center Drive
                  
            Building 10, Room 12S237
      
                  
                                   Bethesda MD 20892
                
                                                firekak@nih.gov 
                Summary
          Alexandra Firek graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida and is an MD student at Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami, FL. Bridging her third and fourth years, she was among 50 students in the nation selected for the prestigious Medical Research Scholars Program (MRSP) at the NIH. Under the mentorship of Dr. Heidi Kong and Dr. Leslie Castelo-Soccio, she works in the Cutaneous Microbiome and Inflammation Section at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Her primary research uses advanced genomic sequencing techniques and bioinformatics tools to study the diversity and complexity of microbial communities in human skin, with a particular focus on hair disorders. 

            Scientific Publications
              Microbiome depiction through user-adapted bioinformatic pipelines and parameters.

    Nayman EI, Schwartz BA, Polanco FC, Firek AK, Gumabong AC, Hofstee NJ, Narasimhan G, Cickovski T, Mathee K
        

                    J Med Microbiol.
        
                    2023 Oct;
        
                    72(10).
        
                    doi: 10.1099/jmm.0.001756
                            PMID: 37823280 
          Education
              
            **FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine**MD Candidate (2020-Present)**University of Florida**Bachelor of Science in Biology with a Minor in Spanish Language (2015-2019)


Last Updated: October 2023


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