# First person – Meri Uusi-Mäkelä and Sanna-Kaisa Emilia Harjula

## TL;DR

This paper discusses the role of the inflammasome adaptor pycard in fighting Mycobacterium marinum infection in zebrafish.

## Contribution

The study identifies pycard as essential for immunity against Mycobacterium marinum in adult zebrafish.

## Key findings

- Pycard is essential for immunity against Mycobacterium marinum in zebrafish.
- The research was conducted using zebrafish as a model organism.
- The findings contribute to understanding bacterial infection models.

## Abstract

First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Meri Uusi-Mäkelä and Sanna-Kaisa Emilia Harjula are joint first authors on ‘
The inflammasome adaptor pycard is essential for immunity against Mycobacterium marinum infection in adult zebrafish’, published in DMM. Meri conducted the research described in this article while a PhD student in Mika Rämet's lab at Tampere University, Tampere, Finland. They are now a postdoc in the lab of Birgitta Henriques-Normark at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, investigating bacterial infection models. Sanna-Kaisa is a postdoc in Mika Rämet's lab at Tampere University, investigating bacterial infection models in zebrafish.