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Ongoing Research

Biochemistry

Jennifer Kohler, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:glycobiology, golgi, membrane proteins

Margaret Phillips, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:drug discovery for Malaria and Africa Sleeping Sickness

Biophysics

Chad Brautigam, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:analyitical ultracentrifugation, protein-protein interactions, structural biology

Cell Biology

Beatriz Fontoura, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:viral-host interactions, rna virus, nucleo-cytoplasmic trafficking

Center for the Genetics of Host Defense

Bruce Beutler, M.D.

Director

Research Interests:role of cytokines in the inflmamatory response, forward genetic analysis of immunity

Dermatology

Tamia Harris-Tryon, M.D., Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:skin microbiome, sebaceous gland biology, lipidomics, skin steroid hormones, bacterial metabolism

Immunology

J. David Farrar, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:molecular immunology, signal transduction, regulation of T-cell differentiation

Dustin Hancks, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:host-pathogen interactions, genetic conflicts, positive selection, genome evolution

Lora Hooper, Ph.D.

Department Chair

Research Interests:host-microbial interactions, mucosal immunology

Shuang Liang, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:chronic liver diseases, non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases

Yuki Obata, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:neuro-immune interactions, intestinal neural circuits, host-microbial interactions

Robert C. Orchard II, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:host-pathogen interactions, virology, immunology, norovirus, CRISPR/Cas9 screening

Tiffany Reese, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:co-infection, herpes viruses, host-pathogen interaction, immunology, virology

Andrew Sandstrom, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:immunology, microbiology, host-pathogen interactions, molecular mechanisms of immune surveillance, inflammation

Nicolai van Oers, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:inborn errors of immunity: from discovery to restoration

Tuoqi Wu, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:t cells, immunotherapy

Nan Yan, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:innate immune sensing of self vs. non-self nucleic acids, pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases

Chen Yao, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:t cell differentiation and function, anti-viral immune response and anti-tumor immunity

Zhenyu Zhong, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:inflammation, innate immunity, mitochondiral signaling pathways and tumor immunology

Internal Medicine

J. David Beckham, M.D.

Professor & Division Chief

Research Interests:viral pathogenesis, neuroimmune responses, vaccine immunology, flavivirus pathogenesis

Ezra Burstein, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor & Division Chief

Research Interests:control of inflammatory responses in the intestine, inflammation and cancer progression

Pearlie Chong, M.D.

Professor & Division Chief

Research Interests:infections in solid organ transplant, norovirus

David Greenberg, M.D.

Professor

Research Interests:gram-negative infections in the immunocompromised host, host-pathogen interactions

Raksha Jain, M.D.

Professor

Research Interests:gender disparities in lung diseases, sex hormone influence on host immunity, treatment advances for Cystic Fibrosis

Theodoros Kelesidis, M.D., Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:HIV-associated cardiometabolic disease, host-pathogen interactions

Lenette Lu, M.D., Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:antibody glycosylation, host-microbial interactions, humoral immunity, tuberculosis

Josephine Ni, M.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:microbiome, inflammatory bowel disease, E.coli, gut colonization, host-microbe interactions

Venuprasad Poojary, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:inflammation, tumor immunology, ubiquitionan

Hans-Christian Reinecker, M.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:Schlafen family proteins, immune responses by STING, cancer immunotherapy, inflammatory bowel diseases

Anne Satterthwaite, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:genetic analysis of signal-transduction pathways regulating B lymphocyte development and function

Michael Shiloh, M.D., Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:innate immune response to intracellular pathogens, microbial pathogenesis, mucosal immunology, mycobacterium tuberculosis

Josephine Thinwa, M.D., Ph.D.

Assistane Professor

Research Interests:host-viral pathogen interaction, neurotropic viruses, autophagy and innate immunity

Emre Turer, M.D., Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:forward genetics, mucosal immunology, host-microbe interactions, innate immunity, vesicle trafficking

Lyda Hill Department of Bioinformatics

Scott Sauders, Ph.D.

Distinguished Fellow

Research Interests:antiobiotic resistance in opportunistic pathogens, synthetic biology

Microbiology

Neal Alto, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:intersection between human signal-transduction and bacterial pathogenesis

Xinyun (Sherry) Cao, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:transcription and regulation in Clostridioides difficile and other bacterial species

Nicholas Conrad, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:intron retention, KSHV gene expression, RNA decay, RNA methylation

Iván D'Orso, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:chromatin biology, epigenetics, gene dysregulation in cancer

Kevin Forsberg, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:microbiology, genetics, metagenomics, evolution, biochemistry, phage-bacterial arms race

Don Gammon, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:virus-host interactions, invertebrate model systems, RNA/DNA virus replication

David Hendrixson, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:Genetic regulators controlling immune cell development

Julie Pfeiffer, Ph.D.

Professor & Chair

Research Interests:circadian control of viral infection, coxsackievirus, murine norovirus, reovirus, viral evolution, virus-host interactions and pathogenesis, virus-microbiota interactions

John Schoggins, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:virus-host interactions and viral pathogenesis, antiviral immune responses, interferon effector mechanisms

Chien-Ting Wu, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:interaction between metabolism and immunity, virus-host interaction in nasal and oral epithelium

Molecular Biology

Zhijian "James" Chen, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:Ubiquitin-proteasome pathway, NF-kappaβ signaling, innate immunity, T cell receptor signaling

Kim Orth, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:vibrio, virulence factors, eukaryotic signaling systems, cellular signaling

Vincent Tagliabracci, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:cancer biology, host-pathogen interactions, pseudokinases, signal transduction

Ophthalmology

Danielle M. Robertson, O.D., Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:infectious diseases, cornea, dry eye

Pathology

Liraz Galia, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:innate immunity, mucosal immunology, immunometabolism, post-translational regulation

Jeffrey SoRelle, M.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:Mendelian, genetics, allergy, glycosylation, autophagy, metabolism

Hasan Zaki, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:cell signaling, diet and metabolic disorders, gastrointestinal inflammation and cancer, gut microbiome, host-pathogen interaction, NOD-Like Receptors

Pediatrics

Natasha Hanners, M.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:flavivirus infection, zika virus neurotropism, neurovirology, virus-host interactions 

Andrew Y. Koh, M.D.

Professor & Division Chief

Research Interests:host-microbial interactions, bacterial-fungal interactions in the gut, the role of antibiotics in modulating infection and graft-versus-host disease

Xin Li, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:host-microbe interactions, mucosal immunology, fungal immunology, inflammatory diseases

Dawn Wetzel, M.D, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:cellular and molecular pathogenesis of leishmaniasis and other parasitic infections

Pharmacology

Jim Collins, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:drug discovery, germ cell develpment, immunology, parasitology, regeneration

Michael Reese, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Research Interests:biochemistry, biophysics, cell signaling, kinases, pseudokinases, host-pathogen interaction, co-evolution, immunology, parasitology, structural biology

Erdal Toprak, Ph.D.

Professor

Research Interests:antibiotic resistance and sensitivity, bacterial efflux pumps, evolvable antimicrobials

Boyuan Wang, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:chemical biology and protein semi-synthesis, non-covalent interactions, regulatory mechanisms in metabolism