Chelsey Skeete (left) returned to STaRS as a mentor in 2023 and 2024. She is pictured here in 2023 with her mentee Jessica Bacelar at the STaRS Poster Symposium.

GMS Student Spotlight: Chelsey Skeete, PhD’25

Chelsey Skeete, PhD’25, had a passion for science long before she matriculated into Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine in 2020. Born and raised in Boston, Skeete remembers participating in science fairs throughout the city and gravitating toward science books, even as a young child. As she progressed through school, teachers and mentors encouraged her to pursue extracurricular outreach opportunities that would bolster her interest in scientific research.

“To be able to research, to ask questions, to be comfortable not knowing things, to explore in the lab—and to have an impact on the community through your findings—was very important to me,” Skeete said.

That drive propelled Skeete’s professional path to STEM, first taking her to Boston College for her bachelor’s degree in biology and then to BU Graduate Medical Sciences for her PhD, where Skeete successfully defended her dissertation in June 2025.

The Journey to Boston University

As an undergraduate student in 2019, Skeete joined the summer cohort of BU’s Summer Training as Research Scholars (StaRS), an on-site summer research program that offers academically talented undergraduates an opportunity to work with a faculty mentor on an independent biomedical research project.

After a summer working under Lee Quinton, PhD, in the Pulmonary Center, she knew that the BU Medical Campus was where she wanted to be for the next chapter of her education.

“Everything was just very collaborative,” Skeete said. “All the graduate students had very complex projects, but the campus was set up with all these different cores and labs who were willing to share information and willing to have multilab meetings on a weekly basis.”

Skeete applied to the Program in Biomedical Sciences (PiBS), which offers students the opportunity to rotate through three laboratories during their first year before specializing in their second year, and matriculated in fall 2020.

Her rotations helped Skeete solidify her interest in host-pathogen interactions and she chose to specialize in the department of virology, immunology & microbiology (VIM), joining the lab of Rahm Gummuluru, PhD, professor and vice chair of VIM.

Multidisciplinary and Collaborative Research

Skeete’s dissertation research focused on the effects of opioids on individuals infected with HIV in the brain. A new project at the time, Skeete’s research examined how this intersection can impact a person from an immunology lens, and how opioid use with an HIV diagnosis affects inflammation and leads to different neurocognitive disorders.

“People with HIV who are also using drugs or opioids are often overlooked in our healthcare system,” Skeete said. “They often have limited resources, and it’s important that we continue to research the best practices and ways to help them.”

Skeete’s project gave her the opportunity to collaborate with different labs and cores at the Medical Campus. She worked closely with the lab of Gustavo Mostoslavsky, MD, PhD, in the Center for Regenerative Medicine to cultivate a specific type of brain cell called microglia. Her research findings highlight how opioid treatment enhances multiple stages of HIV-1 replication and virus-induced inflammation in microglia.

“In science, there is always going to be trial and error,” Skeete said, “I’m just very grateful for a team that was willing to stick through the process and be able to look and see how, together, we could improve the overall model until it became a well-established model.”

Skeete presented her research at the Society for Neuroscience Conference in 2023. Her work, “Mu opioid receptor activation in microglia enhances HIV-1 infection and HIV-infection-induced inflammatory responses,” was published in Frontiers in Immunology in October 2025. “While it’s important to gain those wet lab skills and those analytical and critical thinking skills, it’s also important to learn how to communicate your research to broad ranges of audiences,” Skeete said.

Building Community Within and Beyond Research

Skeete is also involved in the community, both on and off campus, and volunteers with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), working with high school students to inspire their passion for STEM through outreach programs.

During her time at GMS, Skeete served as a student liaison to leadership to advocate for student concerns and brainstorm ideas to improve campus culture and build community and a sense of belonging for all student populations. She also returned to the STaRS program as a mentor in 2023 and 2024, where she guided undergraduate students on their research projects and presentations.

Skeete said she values the different mentors and support systems she built throughout her academic journey: “They were key in encouraging me along the way, especially when challenges came and it seemed like the whole world was against what I was trying to do.”

Skeete is ready to move into the next step of her professional career and has accepted a program manager position with Novartis, where she will lead an outreach program in STEM education.

“It’s so important to me that we continue to equip the next generation of scientists, to really teach them how to think as scientists and encourage them in their calling within STEM,” she said.