AIDS and Pathogens

Charles Brenner, Ph.D.
Dr. Brenner, Professor and Chair of the Department of Diabetes and Cancer Metabolism, received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. His team examines how nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide is disturbed by diseases and conditions including cancer, neuropathy, fatty liver, postpartum and viral infection.
 
Dr. Burnett, Assistant Professor in the Center of Gene Therapy, received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. His laboratory focuses on engineering biological therapeutics, such as specialized RNA aptamers for targeted delivery and genome editing technologies, for genetic and infectious diseases.   
 
Saswati Chatterjee, Ph.D.
Dr. Chatterjee, Professor at the Department of Surgery, received her PhD from McGill University, Canada.  Dr. Chatterjee's research is directed at using recombinant Adeno-Associated Virus vectors to genetically modify hematopoietic stem cells with the ultimate goal of treating an array of diseases including HIV and cancer.
 
Don Diamond, Ph.D.
Dr. Diamond, Professor at the Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, received his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School. His laboratory is focusing on developing a novel approach that uses attenuated salmonella encoding a short hairpin RNA to decrease the expression of molecules contributing to tumor rejection and controlling metastasis.  
 
Yuman Fong, M.D. 
Dr. Fong, Chair and Professor at the Department of Surgery, received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College. Dr. Fong's research is currently focusing on developing genetically engineered viruses to effectively target and destroy cancer cells, especially those that are resistant to chemo- and radiation therapies.
 
Markus Kalkum, Ph.D.
Dr. Kalkum, Professor at the Department of Immunology & Theranostics and the Co-Director of Mass Spectrometry & Proteomic Core, received his Ph.D. from Freie Universität Berlin. His laboratory focuses on the development of novel proteomic technology to study pathogenic fungal and bacterial proteomes for vaccine development.
 
Javier Gordon Ogembo, Ph.D.
Dr. Ogembo, Associate Professor at the Department of Immuno-Oncology, received his Ph.D. from Nagoya University. Dr. Ogembo is studying how oncogenic viruses, such as Epstein-Barr virus and human papillomavirus, overcome cellular barriers and escape host immune responses, with the goal of using this knowledge to aid the development of effective vaccines.   
 
John Rossi, Ph.D.
Dr. Rossi, Professor and Director, Center for RNA Biology and Therapeutics and Dean Emeritus of Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences, received his Ph.D. from University of Connecticut. His laboratory focuses on developing RNA aptamers and cell internalizing delivery vehicle for the treatments of HIV infection and cancers.  
 
John Zaia, M.D.
Dr. Zaia, Director of Center for Gene Therapy, received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. His team collaborates with City of Hope investigators to test various approaches, including genome editing of the CCR5 gene important for HIV infection, in providing resistance to HIV infection and slowing the progression of AIDS.