Chinyere Agbaegbu Iweka, Ph.D.

Chinyere Agbaegbu Iweka is an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. Her research focuses on how the circadian clock regulates immune function and metabolism in aging and age-related diseases. She earned her B.Sc. in biological sciences from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, her M.Sc. in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University and her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Georgetown University. She completed her postdoctoral training at Stanford University.

During her postdoctoral training, Iweka investigated non-neuronal responses to CNS injury, focusing on peripheral immune cells that infiltrate the brain after injury. Her work revealed age-dependent metabolic changes, including alterations in NAD⁺, that correlate with inflammatory responses of monocytes and macrophages following stroke.

Building on these findings, Iweka’s current research examines circadian regulation of immune cell function in aging. Her studies demonstrate an age-related loss of circadian rhythmicity in macrophage trafficking and phagocytosis. She also showed that loss of the circadian clock protein BMAL1 in microglia impairs lysosomal activity, disrupts synaptic pruning, increases synaptic density and leads to cognitive and sleep-wake disturbances.

Iweka is the recipient of several honors, including the L.I.F.E. Award (2026–27), the Burroughs Wellcome Postdoctoral Diversity Enrichment Award (2022-25) and the JEDI Award from the Life Science Editors Foundation (2025).