Virology, Immunology, and Vaccine Development
Dr. Ayalew Mergia works in his lab
Dr. David Pascual operates a microscope
The Virology, Immunology, and Vaccine Development group is focused on a multidisciplinary research and educational program with a wide range of interests in basic and applied research which relate to virus pathogens and host immune defense to infection. Faculty members use state-of-the-art cell, molecular, immunological, and genetic approaches to examine the interface of pathogen-host cell interactions and dissect the molecular mechanisms involved in regulation of the immune response for vaccine development.
Faculty
- Rhoel Dinglasan
- Ayalew Mergia
- Mansour Mohamadzadeh
- Cuong Nguyen
- David Pascual
- Carlos Romero
- Thomas Waltzek
- Janet Yamamoto
- Liang Zhou
- Roy Curtiss, III
- Qingke Kong
Specific areas of research:
- Cellular immune functions for T-cell based vaccines to develop vaccines for immunodeficiency viruses
- Development of immunotherapeutic drugs for infectious diseases and cancers
- The design of computational models for major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-related diseases and therapeutics
- Recombinant West Nile vaccine
- Development and application of serological assays (ELISA’s) for the mass-screening of cetacean, pinniped, and sirenian viral antibodies using recombinant antigens expressed in insect cell cultures
- Development and validation of real-time PCR and real-time RT-PCR assays for the mass-screening of viruses in tissues and lesions from stranded cetaceans, pinnipeds, and sirenians
- Epidemiology and control of emerging viral diseases and their relationship to human and wildlife populations
- Evaluating the toxicity of gene therapy in animals using replication-incompetent adenovirus vectors
- Development of novel viral vectors for HIV gene therapy