TSRI Faculty Interests

Viral Structure and Assembly

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.

Dawson, Philip  
develops novel chemical ligation methodologies for the synthesis of natural and chemically engineered proteins to develop novel peptide based vaccines for HIV-1, study the molecular basis of protein folding and enzymatic catalysis, conjugate biological macromolecules to in complex systems such as cells, viruses and Quantum Dots and to develop synthetic protein pharmaceuticals.

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.

Finn, M.G.  
uses viruses as building blocks for biologically active structures, diagnostic agents, immunogenic platforms, and drug delivery vehicles; and also develops new bioconjugation methods, enzyme inhibitors, and functional materials using "click chemistry," and studies organic and organometallic reaction mechanisms.

Gerace, Larry  
seeks to understand the mechanisms for regulation of signaling and cell differentiation by components of the nuclear envelope, particularly in regard to muscle, and the machinery for posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression by nucleocytoplasmic transport, mRNA translation and protein turnover, with focus on HIV-1.

Johnson Jr., John  
uses a variety of cellular and molecular biology methods to develop and test atomic resolution models of particle-related events in the virus life cycle; he also uses viruses as a paradigm for developing methods to determine atomic resolution models of cellular mega-structures.

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.

Ollmann Saphire, Erica  
combines x-ray crystallography, biochemistry, and immunology to analyse proteins that play key roles in the pathogenesis of Ebola and other viral hemorrhagic fevers; structures of these proteins provide templates for vaccine design and enable rapid responses to newly emerging forms of the viruses.

Salomon, Daniel  
investigates how molecular mechanisms driving immune cell activation and tissue injury, both critical components of cell and organ transplant rejection, are regulated at the gene transcriptional and proteomic level to map molecular networks that determine clinical outcomes.