Lauren Tantalo is a member of the Giacani laboratory at the University of Washington. Native of Seattle, after earning a Bachelor’s in Science degree in Biology from Western Washington University in 1999, she began to work on the study of insect hybrids.

She moved to the University of Washington Department of Neurology in 2001 and spent nearly two decades focusing her work on the diagnosis and treatment of neurosyphilis in the lab of Dr. Christina Marra, prior to joining the Trep-AB project.