Pre-WHIP webinars

Title: Molecular determinants of Type 2 immunity-mediated resistance to helminth infection

Dr. Gazzinelli-Guimaraes earned his Ph.D. from the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil under the supervision of Prof. Ricardo Fujiwara. Following his doctoral studies, he underwent consulting training at the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) at Imperial College London. There, he took on the role of supervisor for the Schistosomiasis Consortium for Operational Research and Evaluation (SCORE) project in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, a project managed by the University of Georgia, USA. In 2016, he joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases (LPD) within NIAID, working under Dr. Thomas Nutman. During his time at NIH, he advanced to the positions of Research Fellow and Staff Scientist. In 2024, he was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and also took on the role of head of the Translational Type 2 Immunity Lab.

Dr. Gazzinelli-Guimaraes will be presenting on January 28, 2025 at 12 pm EST / 9 am PST. Please register HERE.

Title: "Hepatic immune responses to Plasmodium parasite infection of the liver"

We investigate host-pathogen interactions during Plasmodium parasite infection to guide the development of immune-directed interventions that prevent infection, disease, and onward transmission. We mostly study the pre-erythrocytic stages of the Plasmodium life cycle (i.e., invasive sporozoite and parasite developmental stages in liver hepatocytes) to discover and define innate immune mechanisms that modulate the generation of durable, protective anti-Plasmodium liver-resident memory CD8 T cells (CD8 T_RM). We published the first report documenting detrimental impacts of hepatic type I Interferon (IFN-I) signaling on the development of anti-Plasmodium adaptive immunity in mice vaccinated with live attenuated whole Plasmodium parasite vaccines. Importantly, this negative association between IFN-I signaling and the development of protective adaptive immunity has also been observed in human vaccinees, validating the importance of our animal models for mechanistic studies that are infeasible in humans. We are currently developing approaches to spatiotemporally characterize IFN-I signaling in the parasite-infected murine liver, identifying innate and adaptive immune cells impacted by IFN-I signaling and determining the mechanistic underpinnings of this detrimental IFN-I response on the adaptive immune response to parasite infection of the liver. Data from these studies will be discussed in this presentation.

Dr. Nana Minkah will be presenting on February 19, 2025 at 12 pm EST / 9am PST. Please register HERE.

Title: How parasites change anti-viral immunity

In my laboratory we investigate the pathways exploited by viruses and parasites to reveal fundamental aspects of cell biology and immunology. My lab is pioneering the use of mouse models of multiple infections to understand the complex interactions that occur during co-infection. We discovered that infections with parasites reactivate latent herpesvirus infections through manipulations of the immune system that depend on the timing of co-infection (Science, 2014; J Virol, 2021; PLOS Path, 2023). In addition, our sequential infection report is one of the first to demonstrate that bystander infections in mice directly affect the basal immune status of the mouse and the mouse immune response to vaccination (Cell Host Microbe, 2016).

Dr. Reese will be presenting on March 20, 2025 at 12 pm EDT / 9 am PDT. Please register HERE.