Dr. Nakayama is currently Assistant Professor at the Barbara Davis Center in the University of Colorado Denver. After obtaining her MD and PhD from Kobe University School of Medicine in Japan, she joined Dr. Eisenbarth’s laboratory at the Barbara Davis Center and was engaged in a research project pursuing insulin as a primary autoantigen for type 1 diabetes (T1D) using the NOD mouse model. Her laboratory focuses on the mechanism how anti-islet autoimmunity causing T1D is initiated, from the aspect of autoantigens and T cell receptors that are primarily targeted and used by autoreactive T cells and could be essential for T1D development.