Current Protocols Editorial Board: Microbiology
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Richard Coico Computational methods used to help us identify candidate vaccines for a wide variety of pathogens play an important role in defining epitopes that have the potential to be immunogenic. The major research interest of Dr. Coico's laboratory is the identification of candidate vaccines for several hemorrhagic viruses, including Lassa Fever Virus. Lassa virus causes a severe and often fatal hemorrhagic disease. Lassa fever is endemic in rural Africa and has been estimated to cause more than 300,000 infections/year. There are currently no vaccines to protect individuals from this infection. Using computational methods together with bioinformatics tools, Dr. Coico's group recently identified immunogenic Lassa virus peptides (epitopes) that may serve as candidate vaccine components. These peptides occur within the Lassa virus glycoprotein and, when synthesized and used to immunize mice expressing human MHC antigens, they induce peptide-specific cytotoxic T cells. Cytotoxic T cells are crucial for protective immune responses to viruses. These findings provide direct evidence for the existence of Lassa virus-derived epitopes that may be useful in the development of protective vaccines against this hemorrhagic virus. Similar studies have been successfully carried out using computationally identified Ebola virus epitopes. A second area of investigation underway in Dr. Coico's laboratory uses functional immunomics as a tool to study biological markers involved in viral infections. Functional immunomics employs the use of immunomic microarray technology--a spatially addressable, large-scale technology for measurement of specific immunological responses. Immunomic data has been successfully used to identify biological markers involved in autoimmune diseases, allergies, viral infections such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), influenza, diabetes, and responses to cancer vaccines. By combining our computational methods to define immunogenic epitopes for Lassa and Ebola viruses with functional immunomics, we hope to gain new insights into the efficacy of peptide-based vaccines. |
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Timothy Kowalik Timothy Kowalik received his B.S. degree in Biology and Mathematics from Belmont Abbey College in 1982. He received his M.S. (1986) and his Ph.D. (1989) in Molecular Biology and Virology from Utah State University. Dr. Kowalik did postdoctoral research on virus-cell interactions from 1990-1993 at the Lineberger Cancer Center of the University of North Carolina. From 1993-1996, he continued his postdoctoral studies in the Department of Genetics at Duke University Medical Center where he analyzed the relationship between the cell cycle and apoptosis. During his postdoctoral training, Dr. Kowalik was a Fellow of the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund and a Leukemia Society of America Special Fellow. In 1996, Dr. Kowalik joined the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School where he is an associate professor. |
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John M. Quarles Pathogenesis of viruses and intervention in viral diseases (antiviral drugs, vaccines, interferon) with primary concentration on influenza virus. Capillary culture techniques for the production of cellular products. Flow cytometry and its applications to microbiology. Development of methods for rapid identification of microorganisms. The use of computers in biomedical education. Education: B.S. Bacteriology, 1963. Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida M.S. in Bacteriology, 1965. Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida Ph.D. in Microbiology, 1973. Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan Recipient of NIH pre-doctoral training fellowship Postdoctoral Research Fellow, with Dr. Ray Tennant, Biology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Oak Ridge TN NCI post-doctoral Fellowship, 1973-76 |
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Brian Stevenson Website: http://www.mc.uky.edu/microbiology/stevenson.asp |
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Ronald K. Taylor Dr. Taylor received his B.A. degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1976. He received his Ph.D. degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 1984 where he studied mechanisms of bacterial gene expression in response to environmental stimuli. He did his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School where he began his work on the identification and regulation of virulence determinants in the pathogenic bacterium, Vibrio cholerae. In 1986 Dr. Taylor joined the faculty in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Tennessee Medical School in Memphis and in 1993 moved to the Microbiology and Immunology Department at Dartmouth Medical School as an Associate Professor. He is currently Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and director of M2P2 at Dartmouth College. Website: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rktlab/Taylor_Lab/Ron_Taylor.html |
