• This expert has not been pitched yet!

Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D. is a Professor of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and one of the world’s leading experts in pandemic and emerging viruses, such as Ebola, Marburg and Lassa. Dr. Saphire directs the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Immunotherapeutic Consortium (VIC), an NIH-funded Center of Excellence in Translational Research. The VIC unites 43 previously competing academic, industrial and government labs across five continents to understand which antibodies are most effective in patients and to streamline the research pipeline to provide antibody therapeutics against Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and other viruses. Dr. Saphire's research explains, at the molecular level, how and why viruses like Ebola and Lassa are pathogenic and provides the roadmap for developing antibody-based treatments. Her team has solved the structures of the Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, Bundibugyo and Lassa virus glycoproteins, explained how they remodel these structures as they drive themselves into cells, how their proteins suppress immune function and where human antibodies can defeat these viruses. A recent discovery revealed why neutralizing antibodies had been so difficult to elicit against Lassa virus, and provided not only the templates for the needed vaccine, but the molecule itself: a Lassa surface glycoprotein engineered to remain in the right conformation to inspire the needed antibody response. This molecule is the basis for international vaccine efforts against Lassa. Dr. Saphire is the recipient of numerous accolades and grants, including the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering presented by President Obama at the White House; the Gallo Award for Scientific Excellence and Leadership from the Global Virus Network; young investigator awards from the International Congress of Antiviral Research, the American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the MRC Centre for Virus Research in the United Kingdom; the Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the Surhain Sidhu award for the most outstanding contribution to the field of diffraction by a person within five years of the Ph.D. Dr. Saphire has been awarded a Fulbright Global Scholar fellowship from the United States Department of State and a Mercator Fellowship from the German research foundation, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, to develop international collaborations around human health and molecular imaging through cryoelectron microscopy. Dr. Saphire received a B.A. in biochemistry and cell biology and ecology and evolutionary biology from Rice University in Houston, Texas, and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Scripps Research. She stayed on at Scripps Research as a Research Associate to conduct postdoctoral research and rose through the ranks to become a Professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology. In early 2019, Dr. Saphire joined La Jolla Institute for Immunology to establish a molecular imaging facility for cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) at the Institute. The extremely detailed images produced by cryo-EM reveal precisely how essential mechanisms of the immune system operate.

Media mobile No : 8583577481

Media office Phone : 8587526640

Media email : gina@lji.org

• This expert has not been pitched yet!

Dr. Ley joined LJI in 2007 as the founding Division Head of the Division of Inflammation Biology. Dr. Ley received his B.S. from Altkönigschule-Gymnasium, Kronberg, Germany in 1976. In 1982, he received his M.D. from the Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg, Germany. Dr. Ley began his postdoctoral training from 1983 to 1987 at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. From 1987 to 1989, Dr. Ley was a visiting research scientist at the University of California, San Diego and returned to Freie Universität Berlin until 1994, when he joined the faculty of the University of Virginia. From 2001-2007, he was director of the Robert M Berne Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Virginia.

Media mobile No : 8583577481

Media office Phone : 8587526640

Media email : gina@lji.org

• This expert has not been pitched yet!

Dr. Vijayanand was appointed an Associate Professor in the Division of Vaccine Discovery in 2015. He is the inaugural holder of the William K. Bowes Distinguished Professorship Dr. Vijayanand received his M.D. from the MGR Medical University in Chennai, India, and completed his residency in Internal Medicine followed by a Pulmonary Fellowship in the United Kingdom. In 2008, he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, where he studied the mechanisms of accumulation and activation of T cells in human asthma. Since then, Dr. Vijayanand has split his time between laboratory research and seeing patients at the University of Southampton, where he currently holds an appointment as an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine. In 2007, he was awarded a prestigious National Career Development Fellowship to undertake translational studies in the epigenetic regulation of the immune cell signaling molecules in human asthma at UC San Francisco, where he was appointed adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Medicine in 2009. Two years later, Vijay joined the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology as an adjunct assistant professor in the Division of Signaling and Gene Expression.

Media mobile No : 8583577481

Media office Phone : 8587526640

Media email : gina@lji.org

• This expert has not been pitched yet!

Hedrick received her B.S. in Biology from Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1984. She received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in 1992, where she performed her graduate research on LDL cholesterol metabolism in the laboratory of Dr Lawrence Rudel. From 1992 to 1995, she performed her postdoctoral research on HDL metabolism in the laboratory of Dr Aldons ‘Jake’ Lusis at UCLA. From 1995 to 1999, she worked as a junior faculty member in the Division of Cardiology at UCLA, where her research focused on inflammation and endothelial function. From 2000 to 2009, Dr. Hedrick worked as a professor in the Departments of Pharmacology, Medicine, and Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In 2009, Dr. Hedrick was awarded the Harrison Chair of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics at the University of Virginia. Dr. Hedrick joined the faculty of LJI in the Division of Inflammation Biology in 2009. Dr. Hedrick currently serves on the NHLBI Vascular Cellular Molecular Biology Review Committee, the AAI Committee for the Status of Women, and the American Heart Association ATVB Council Leadership Committee. She is also a Fellow of the American Heart Association. Recent honors received by Dr. Hedrick include the ATVB Vascular Biology Special Recognition Award, from the American Heart Association in 2013; the Jeffrey M. Hoeg Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Award for Basic Science and Clinical Research from the American Heart Association in 2014; and the Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Mentor of Women Award from the American Heart Association in 2015.

Media mobile No : 8583577481

Media office Phone : 8587526640

Media email : gina@lji.org

• This expert has not been pitched yet!

Dr. Crotty received his B.S. in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1996. He also received a B.S. in Writing from MIT the same year. Dr. Crotty undertook graduate work in virology at the University of California, San Francisco in the Program in Biological Sciences. There he discovered the mechanism of action of the antiviral drug ribavirin, widely used to treat chronic hepatitis C infections. Dr. Crotty earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2001. He then pursued postdoctoral work at the Emory University Vaccine Center with Dr. Rafi Ahmed from 2001 to 2003, studying aspects of the generation and maintenance of immune memory after viral infections. In 2003, he accepted a faculty position at LJI. The Crotty lab has helped established that follicular helper T cells (Tfh) are a distinct type of differentiated CD4 T cell uniquely specialized in B cell help, and that Tfh differentiation is controlled by the transcription factor Bcl6 (Science 2009). He has made major advances in the area of T cell help to B cells, and through this work has become an internationally recognized leader in the field of Tfh cell biology (Annual Review of Immunology 2011). Dr. Crotty was named a Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences in 2005, and was the recipient of the annualAmerican Association of Immunologists (AAI) Investigator Award for outstanding early-career research contributions to the field of Immunology in 2012. Dr. Crotty is also the author of Ahead of the Curve, a biography of Nobel laureate scientist David Baltimore, published in 2001, and reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, Nature, The Washington Post, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Nature Medicine, and Discover Magazine.

Media mobile No : 8583577481

Media office Phone : 8587526640

Media email : gina@lji.org