Our Labs

The Aitchison Lab focuses on the development and application of systems biology approaches to infectious diseases. Research areas of focus include malaria, HIV/AIDS, biotechnology, genetic engineering, global health, big data, computational biology, genomics, proteomics, OMICS, predictive analytics, data analysis, immunology and influenza.

The Coler Lab focuses on vaccine development and host-directed therapies against a variety of epidemic and pandemic diseases. Our mission is to develop solutions to fight tuberculosis, nontuberculous mycobacteria and positive strand RNA viruses to improve outcomes in adult and childhood health — major causes of mortality, poverty, and inequality in low- and middle-income Countries (LMIC). Our focus is translational research: we funnel vaccine candidates from the laboratory to human clinical studies.

The Frenkel Lab aims to: understand the mechanisms that allow HIV to persist during antiretroviral therapy; develop practical, affordable tests to detect drug-resistant HIV; make insights into reservoirs of drug-resistant HIV and illuminate the pathogenesis of HIV-related diseases.

The Gern Lab investigates tuberculosis, with the ultimate goal of informing the design of improved treatments and vaccines.

 The Jaspan Lab seeks to identify correlates of HIV risk at mucosal surfaces, namely the infant gut and the adolescent genital tract; study the role of the commensal bacterial at these mucosal surfaces in modulating immunity; understand immunity of infants born to HIV-infected mothers, who are uninfected yet have high morbidity; identify vaccination strategies that reduce HIV infection; and improve infectious morbidities in these vulnerable HIV-exposed infants. Research area of focus include virology and bacteriology, specifically viral immunology, mucosal virome and mucosal microbiota.

The Kaushansky Lab works with the pathogens of infectious diseases like malaria that infect hundreds of millions of people every year. Research areas of focus include malaria host-parasite interaction; host-based drug discovery; cross-pathogen studies and co-infections; global health; immunology and infectious disease.

In the Ma Lab, we combine computational and experimental network biology approaches to understand the molecular interactions that determine infection and treatment fate in tuberculosis. 

The primary goal of the Minkah lab is to discover and define mechanisms that dictate the generation of durable, protective liver-resident memory T cell responses.

The Myler Lab uses cutting-edge genomic, bioinformatic and molecular approaches to study gene function and protein structure in a variety of infectious disease organisms.

The focus of the Obado Lab is understanding the functional relationship between the control of gene regulation, RNA export and the nuclear pore complex (NPC), which is the sole mediator of nucleocytoplasmic transport. 

Our current research is focused in two main areas: (i) understanding the biology of the global pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis; and (ii) discovering and developing novel drugs for tuberculosis (TB) that are effective at curing drug sensitive and drug resistant tuberculosis.

The Rajagopal Lab utilizes genetic, molecular, biochemical and proteomic approaches to study infectious diseases caused by bacteria. The lab focuses on the human pathogens group B Streptococcus and Staphylococcus aureus. Research areas of focus include bacteriology, specifically bacterial pathogenesis, bacterial virulence and animal models of human disease.

Work in the Sodora Lab primarily focuses on two principal areas of HIV research: HIV transmission and HIV-induced disease and immune factors that impact progression to AIDS. Collectively, these research strategies are designed to produce novel vaccine approaches and immune therapies that will decrease the spread of HIV and/or prevent disease progression in HIV-infected people.

Research in the Stuart Lab is focused on protozoan pathogens and the diseases that they cause. These include malaria, which is caused by Plasmodium parasites, and human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), Chagas disease and leishmaniasis, which are caused by three trypanosomatid parasites. Research areas of focus include immunology, infectious disease, global health, genetic engineering, systems biology, biotechnology and host-pathogen interaction.

The mission of the Vaughn Lab is to alleviate the suffering of those affected by the disease malaria, which kills upwards of 400,000 people, mostly young children, every year.

The Wagner Lab focuses on HIV and other chronic viral infections. The lab studies the mechanism of viral persistence and aims to leverage those insights to engineer improved therapy for chronic infections. The primary focus of the lab is on cell and gene therapy as a novel strategy to treat infectious diseases. We are currently testing HIV-resistant anti-HIV CAR T cells in animal models.