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Adjunct Faculty

Adjunct faculty typically have an academic or research appointment at another institution and contribute or collaborate with one or more School of Medicine faculty members or programs.

Adjunct rank details

Margaret Hostetter

Professor Adjunct
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About

Titles

Professor Adjunct

Biography

Margaret Hostetter, MD, Adjunct Professor, joined Yale in 1998 as Director of the Yale Child Health Research Center and Chief of the Division of Immunology. She became Chair of Yale's Department of Pediatrics from 2002-2010. After retiring in 2020 from her subsequent position as Chair of Pediatrics and Director of the Research Foundation at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center, Hostetter rejoined the Department of Pediatrics at Yale as an Adjunct Professor in 2021.

Hostetter is a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases and in the evaluation of internationally adopted children. Her studies of Streptococcus pneumoniae, a leading global respiratory pathogen, and of Candida albicans, a yeast that infects immunocompromised patients, were supported by the NIH and private foundations for more than 30 years.

For 20 years, she also served as program director of the Pediatric Scientist Development Program, a multi-million dollar national training program for pediatric physician-scientists funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Prior to coming to Yale, Hostetter held the American Legion Heart Research Chair in Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota and headed the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. Hostetter's honors include the American Academy of Pediatrics Award for Excellence in Research, the Samuel Rosenthal Award for contributions to academic pediatrics, and the E. Mead Johnson Award for Pediatric Research from the Society for Pediatric Research (SPR). She is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, the ASCI, the American Pediatric Society, and the Society for Pediatric Research.

Last Updated on July 08, 2026.

Appointments

Other Departments & Organizations

Education & Training

Fellow
Boston Children's, Harvard (1980)
Intern & Resident
Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard (1978)
MD
Baylor College of Medicine, Medicine (1975)
BA
Denison University, English (1970)

Research

Overview

While at Yale from 1998-2010, Hostetter's research focused mainly on Candida albicans. Among the fungi, the yeast Candida albicans is the leading cause of death in susceptible hosts including premature newborns, patients with cancer, and other immunocompromised patients. Expanding upon our prior characterization of functions of the Int1 protein in adhesion and filamentous growth (Science 279:1355-8, 1998), we have defined new roles for this protein in superantigen-mediated injury, heparin binding, and biofilm formation. Other projects in the laboratory focus on the involvement of the mitochondrial proteome in C. albicans morphogenesis and on the mechanisms whereby this yeast invades the human gastrointestinal tract. In vitro models of gastrointestinal invasion are particularly interesting because of the novel linkage between C. albicans proteases, epithelial E-cadherin, and signaling via the gamma-secretase pathway.

  • How heparin enhances the ability of Candida albicans to evade innate immunity
  • Statins as inhibitors of Candida albicans biofilm
  • High throughput screening to identify other inhibitors of C. albicans biofilm


Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Margaret Hostetter's published research.

Publications

2024

2022

2021

2020

Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

Activities

  • activity

    National Institutes of Health

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    March of Dimes

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    Yale School of Medicine

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    Yale University

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    NICHD

Honors

  • honor

    President

  • honor

    Appointment to the NIH Director’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Research

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    Maxwell Finland Lecturer

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    Election to the Institute of Medicine

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    E. Mead Johnson Award for Pediatric Research

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