Infectious diseases pose a significant public health burden, accounting for nearly one-fifth of deaths globallyper annum. Most infections are initiated from a restricted mucosal tissue, such as the intestine. To fightintestinal infections, gut-resident immune cells are superior to circulating ones. There is a surge of recentinterest in tissue-resident memory T (TRM) cells that have been shown to be a critical adaptive immunecomponent of mucosal immunity. These cells have been flagged as an ideal cell population to be generated inT cell-based vaccines.

Malaria remains a significant contributor to the global burden of disease. In endemic regions, malaria mostlyaffects children. Older individuals are protected from disease by an immune response against the parasite?sblood stage. Eliciting a protective immune response in children by vaccination would significantly reducemalaria morbidity and mortality. Antibodies are a critical component of such protection. A strong correlationexists between antibodies against merozoite antigens and a reduction in malaria incidence.

Infectious diseases pose a significant public health burden, accounting for nearly one-fifth of deaths globallyper annum. Most infections are initiated from a restricted mucosal tissue, such as the intestine. To fightintestinal infections, gut-resident immune cells are superior to circulating ones. There is a surge of recentinterest in tissue-resident memory T (TRM) cells that have been shown to be a critical adaptive immunecomponent of mucosal immunity. These cells have been flagged as an ideal cell population to be generated inT cell-based vaccines.

This contract provides for the development and standardization of animal models for infectious diseases, and may include efficacy testing of candidate products.

This contract provides for the development and standardization of animal models for infectious diseases, and may include efficacy testing of candidate products.

Most of what we know about antifungal drug research is derived from studies of non-pathogenic model fungi,such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which can easily be inserted into high throughput screening platforms,but are unsuitable as pan-fungal models. The rapid completion of genome sequences, and continuallyevolving bioinformatic manipulation of this vast and growing amount of data, has enabled new approaches toantifungal investigation.

We have discovered that human APOBEC3 genes produce enzymes with different sizes and activities in different human populations. Importantly, the mutations induce, by APOBEC3 enzymes, in the HIV-1 genome also have distinct patterns in different human populations. The major goals of this study are to establish association between genetic variations in the APOBEC3 locus and variations in HIV-1 hypermutation patterns, and determine the underlying molecular mechanisms.

Most of what we know about antifungal drug research is derived from studies of non-pathogenic model fungi,such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which can easily be inserted into high throughput screening platforms,but are unsuitable as pan-fungal models. The rapid completion of genome sequences, and continuallyevolving bioinformatic manipulation of this vast and growing amount of data, has enabled new approaches toantifungal investigation.