TSRI Faculty Interests

Microbiology

Burton, Dennis  
focuses his research primarily on human antibody responses to HIV and the design of an HIV vaccine. He has also worked on the interaction of antibodies and other pathogens, including respiratory syncytial virus, Ebola virus and prion proteins.

Elder, John  
focuses on the molecular and biological characterization of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), which causes an AIDS-like disease in the domestic cat and is similar to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); his goal is to develop drug treatments and vaccines that may be employed to treat viral infections in both humans and cats.

Nemazee, David  
studies "receptor editing," a novel immunological tolerance mechanism in which developing B lymphocytes that carry autoreactive cell surface antibody are stimulated to "reprogram" their immunoglobulin genes by further rounds of DNA recombination.

Nemerow, Glen  
investigates the interaction of adenovirus with host cells, looking at the basic mechanisms involved in virus attachment, internalization, membrane penetration, and nuclear localization, and seeking to design novel adenoviral vectors with increased capacity to deliver therapeutic genes to specific cell types.

Russell, Paul  
studies DNA damage response mechanisms that are relevant to the prevention and treatment of cancer; investigates how cells tolerate exposure to environmental toxins.

Surh, Charles  
studies how naive and memory T cells develop and survive under normal physiological conditions, and explores new ways of modulating T cells populations for treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Whitton, J. Lindsay  
studies antiviral immunity mediated by the recognition of viral peptides by host cells, the basis of immunization with plasmid DNA vaccines, and the role of the immune system in viral pathogenesis during coxsackievirus infections.

Winzeler, Elizabeth  
develops new genome analysis technologies and applies them to study agents of infectious disease, such as the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum; her goal is to use genome sequence information, microarrays, and proteomics as a substitute for traditional forward and reverse genetic approaches for elucidation of gene function.

Wittenberg, Curt  
studies the role of cell cycle regulated transcription and proteolysis in cell cycle regulation via cyclin dependent protein kinases.