Biographies

Day One – Co-Chairs
Day One – Presenters and Panelists
Day Two – Co-Chairs
Day Two – Presenters and Panelists
Day Three – Co-Chairs
Day Three – Presenters and Panelists

Day One – Co-Chairs

Elisabet "Lis" Caler, PhD, MPhil (OAR, NIH)

Dr. Caler is a Senior Scientific Advisor in the NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR), where she provides senior scientific and programmatic leadership for the NIH’s coordinated HIV/AIDS research enterprise. At OAR, she helps shape NIH-wide priorities in HIV cure, diagnostics and technology advances, data integration, early-career investigator development, research infrastructure, and community partnership, and actively participated in the development of the NIH HIV Strategic Plan 2026–2030. Prior to OAR, Dr. Caler served as a Program Director at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), where she directed an extramural portfolio of more than 200 active research and training grants in pulmonary infections, lung microbiome, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis, while helping launch over 12 strategic funding initiatives across emerging areas of biomedical science including HIV initiatives. Before joining NIH, she was an Assistant Professor of Genomics at the J. Craig Venter Institute, leading genomics, metagenomics, transcriptomics, and infectious disease research. Dr. Caler earned her Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Biomedical Sciences from Yale University School of Public Health and her M.Sc. In Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Buenos Aires. She completed postdoctoral training as a Fogarty Fellow at NIAID, NIH, and as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine at Yale University. She leads the OAR Technology Advances for HIV Program, the OAR Early Career Investigators in HIV Initiative and acts as senior advisor for the OAR Community Partnership Program.

Tania Lombo, PhD (NIAID, NIH)

Tania Lombo, PhD, is a Program Officer with over a decade of experience across multiple NIH Institutes and Centers, currently serving in the Division of AIDS (DAIDS) of NIAID, where she oversees the Maternal Adolescent and Pediatric HIV Research Branch's portfolio—including the Pediatric Adolescent Virus Elimination (PAVE) Collaboratory and many other research projects on maternal and pediatric HIV research. Previously, as Program Officer for the NIH Office of the Director's ECHO Program, she led the strategic planning in genomics, microbiome, and obesity research across a portfolio of more than 10 cooperative agreements and 25 pediatric cohorts. At NCATS, she served as Scientific Program Manager for the Common Fund’s Program on Extracellular RNA Communication. Earlier NIH roles included Sr. Scientific Administrator for NCI's Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research Branch, Clinical Project Manager for NCI's Center for Global Health directing international breast cancer genomics research across seven Latin American countries, a Research Fellowship with NIAID's Office of Global Research, and a Postdoctoral Fellowship in NCI's HIV Drug Resistance Program studying retroviral RNA packaging. Dr. Lombo earned her Ph.D. on Molecular Microbiology from the University of Vienna (Austria) and earned a clinical pathologist degree in Colombia. Across these roles, she has developed major funding initiatives in transformative biomedical research, pediatric and maternal research including different infectious and chronic diseases, therapeutics, genomic data science, cohort studies, and led numerous NIH-wide scientific workshops to advance basic and translational research across the life span.

Vasundhara Varthakavi, PhD, DVM (NIDA, NIH)

Vasundhara Varthakavi, DVM, PhD, is the Acting Director of the HIV Research Program at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), where she provides scientific leadership, strategic planning, program coordination, and budgetary oversight for NIDA’s HIV research portfolio. In this role, Dr. Varthakavi helps shape NIDA’s HIV research priorities by identifying emerging scientific opportunities, fostering collaborations across NIH institutes, and guiding the development of research initiatives that advance the field. Dr. Varthakavi has expertise in virology, cell biology, and immunology as they relate to HIV and herpesviruses. She earned her veterinary degree in India, completed doctoral training in Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology at Kansas State University, and pursued postdoctoral training in HIV research before serving as a Research Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Prior to joining NIDA, she served as a Scientific Review Officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, leading and contributing to reviews of major HIV research initiatives.

Dwight Yin, MD, PhD (NIAID, NIH)

Dwight Yin, MD, PhD, is the Acting Chief of the Epidemiology Branch of the Basic Sciences Program at the Division of AIDS (DAIDS) in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is a pediatric infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist, with a focus on advancing novel methods to optimize development of therapeutics for HIV prevention, treatment, and cure. He has served as Chair of the New Approach Methodologies for HIV Working Group since 2022. He joined NIAID in 2020 as a medical officer in the Maternal Adolescent Pediatric Research Branch of the Prevention Sciences Program at DAIDS. Before coming to the NIH, Dr. Yin was Director of HIV Services at Children's Mercy Kansas City and the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and previously at Baylor College of Medicine (at the Botswana-Baylor Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence). He received his BS from Duke University, MD at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and an MPH and PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Yin completed his internship and residency in Pediatrics at the St. Louis Children's Hospital-Washington University in St. Louis consortium and his fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Duke University Medical Center.

Day One – Presenters and Panelists

Cristina Antich Acedo, PhD (NCATS, NIH)

Dr. Cristina Antich Acedo is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at National Institutes of Health (MD, US). She graduated in Biomedical science from University of Barcelona and specialized in Tissue Engineering, after completing her master’s degree and PhD in Tissue Engineering and Biomedicine from the University of Granada (Spain), respectively. Her academic training and research experience have provided her with an excellent background in multiple disciplines including cell biology, biochemistry, biophysics, and engineering. As a predoctoral student with Dr. Juan Antonio Marchal at the University of Granada, Cristina’s research focused on the development of artificial tissues, such as articular cartilage, for regenerative purposes using new biomimetic biomaterials and 3D bioprinting technology. During postdoctoral stages in NIH, her work continues in the line of 3D bioprinting for the development of in vitro human 3D physiological and pathophysiological models in high throughput (HT) for testing drug candidates as well as for more precise insights into the processes underlying pathologies that will enable to identify potential therapeutic targets for new treatments.

Catherine Blish, MD, PhD (Stanford University School of Medicine)

Catherine Blish, MD, PhD is the Frances Krauskopf Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She has a joint appointment in the Stanford Immunology Program, is the Associate Dean for Research, the Co-Director of the Stanford Medical Scientist Training Program, and an Investigator of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. As an undergraduate she studied Biochemistry at the University of California, Davis, before completing her MD and PhD in Immunology at the University of Washington, followed by residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington. In August 2011, she joined the faculty at Stanford. Her research is dedicated to learning how to harness the immune system to prevent and cure diseases. Her lab studies host-pathogen interactions, with a particular focus on innate immune responses to a diverse array of pathogens including HIV, dengue virus, influenza, tuberculosis, and SARS-CoV-2. She divides her time between research, clinical practice in infectious diseases, teaching, and her administrative roles. She has received numerous awards for research and mentoring, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the NIDA Avant-Garde Award for HIV/AIDS Research, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award, and Stanford Immunology Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award, among others. She is an elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians and a Fellow of the American Society for Microbiology.

Guido Ferrari, MD (Duke University)

Dr. Ferrari is a Professor at Duke University in the Department of Surgery and Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. He is also affiliated faculty at the Duke Global Health Institute, Duke Human Vaccine Institute, and University of Cape Town Department of Immunology. Dr. Ferrari has worked on testing samples from vaccine recipients for cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) and antibody dependent cellular cytotoxic (ADCC) responses since 1995 for the HIV Vaccine Trial Network (HVTN). Dr. Ferrari has also been the director of the ADCC core laboratory for the Comprehensive Antibody-Vaccine Immune Monitoring Consortium (CA-VIMC) and for the Primate AIDS Vaccine Evaluation Group (PAVEG) and director of the Duke CFAR Advanced Immuno-Technology Core. He was the first to characterize vaccine-induced cross-clade clade CD8 CTL and ADCC responses. Overall, Dr. Ferrari is exploring the translational aspects of antibody and cellular mediated cytotoxic immune responses against HIV-1, and more recently against SARS-CoV-2, that can be leverage for prevention and treatment of viral infections. More recently, Dr. Ferrari has started a program withing the Duke Center for AIDS research and Center for Human System Immunology to explore the feasibility to develop immunocompetent lymph node and vaginal tissues on chips. The goal is to have models that can inform mechanism of latency, infection of tissue resident cells, and cross-talks between tissues relevant for transmission and immune responses.

Mary Kearny, PhD (NCI, NIH)

Dr. Kearney received her Ph.D. in Biology at Catholic University in 2007 under the direction of John Coffin, Sarah Palmer, and Venigalla Rao. She received The Benedict T. DeCicco Award for Excellence in Graduate Research in 2008. In 2001 she joined the HIV Dynamics and Replication Program (HIV DRP) as a Biologist in the Virology Core. In 2008 she was promoted to Head of the Translational Research Section where she oversees a team that investigates viral genetics and expression in vivo, the sources of persistent HIV during antiretroviral therapy (ART), the sources of rebound viremia after stopping ART, the mechanisms for maintaining the HIV reservoir, and the mechanisms for the emergence of drug-resistance mutations in HIV and other RNA viruses. Dr. Kearney’s studies have demonstrated that a diverse population of HIV-infected cells persist during ART, that some infected cells proliferate despite ART, and that residual viremia on ART results from viral expression in these cells. In 2019, Dr. Kearney was promoted to Senior Scientist, in 2021 to Deputy Director of the HIV DRP, and in 2023 to Deputy Director of the Center for Cancer Research. Dr. Kearney also leads the trans-NIH HIV Standardizing Organoid Modeling (SOM) Initiative to validate novel approach models for studies of HIV.

Emily Lee, PhD (NCATS, NIH)

Emily Lee is a staff scientist and functional group lead in the 3-D Tissue Bioprinting Laboratory within NCATS’ Division of Preclinical Innovation (DPI). Lee uses her diverse background in human disease, high-throughput screening, and induced pluripotent stem cells and primary cells to investigate, evaluate and implement new assay technologies to develop physiologically relevant assays including 3-D organotypic models for drug discovery and development related to viral infections, neurological disorders and liver disease.

Keith Reeves, PhD (Duke University)

R. Keith Reeves, Ph.D., is Vice Chair of Research and a tenured Professor in the Department of Surgery as well as Professor in the Department of Pathology at Duke University School of Medicine. He serves as a Director in the Duke Center for Human Systems Immunology and the Duke Center for AIDS Research Developmental Core and is Co-Director of the NIH Center of Excellence for Multiscale Immune Systems Modeling. An internationally recognized immunologist, Dr. Reeves has made significant contributions to the understanding of natural killer (NK) cell biology in particular, including the first demonstration of antigen-specific NK-cell memory in primates and seminal studies defining NK-cell heterogeneity, trafficking, and function during HIV/SIV infection. His research integrates basic immunology, systems biology, computational modeling, and translational medicine to define how immune responses are shaped across infectious and immune-mediated diseases, cancer, aging, environmental exposures, and tissue inflammation. His laboratory develops innovative immune-based therapeutics and multiscale computational approaches to better understand disease pathogenesis and accelerate the development of vaccines, immunotherapies, and precision medicine. Dr. Reeves is a former Chair of the NIH HIV Immunopathogenesis and Vaccine Development Study Section, and he currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses. He leads a broad research portfolio spanning basic discovery, translational immunology, and computational medicine, and has mentored more than 60 trainees and early-stage investigators across multiple career stages in academia and medicine. His current research programs encompass HIV cure strategies and vaccines, emerging infectious diseases, cancer immunology, environmental immunology, immune aging and resilience, and multiscale immune systems modeling, including the development of immune digital twin technologies. 

Day Two – Co-Chairs

Biographies coming soon.

Day Two – Presenters and Panelists

Jason P Gleghorn, PhD (University of Delaware, DE)

Dr. Jason Gleghorn is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Biological Sciences at the University of Delaware. He leads an interdisciplinary laboratory that develops organ-on-chip models of the cervicovaginal mucosa to study how the microbiome and host immune response govern susceptibility to sexually transmitted pathogens. His group's platforms integrate epithelium, immune cells, and defined microbial communities to bridge preclinical mechanistic discovery with clinical questions in women's health, pregnancy, and infectious disease. Dr. Gleghorn co-founded two companies spun out of research conducted in his lab. He has received national and international recognition for his work, including the March of Dimes Basil O’Connor Award, the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Rising Star Award, the Michael Bowman Entrepreneurship and Innovation Award, and the Gerard J. Mangone Young Scholar Award from the Francis Alison Society. Additionally, Dr. Gleghorn is a recipient of an NSF CAREER award and has been named a Young Innovator in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering.

James Hickman, PhD (Hesperos, Inc.)

Dr. James J. Hickman is a Professor at the University of Central Florida’s NanoScience Technology Center as well as the Co-Founder of Hesperos, a pioneering human-on-a-chip company advancing preclinical drug discovery and toxicology that has repurposed numerous therapeutic candidates into INDs utilizing efficacy data from these models. He established one of the country's first bioelectronics labs, focusing on cell-based sensors and their integration with electronic devices and MEMS devices, and he published the first serum-free, defined culture system for neuronal systems in 1995. A prolific innovator with 186 publications, 20 book chapters, and 40 issued patents, Dr. Hickman is a Fellow of AIMBE, the American Vacuum Society, the International Academy of Nanobiotechnology, and the National Academy of Inventors. He has a Ph.D. from MIT in Chemistry, and he is currently the President of the International Microphysiological Systems Society (IMPSS).

Marit van Gils, PhD (University of Amsterdam)

Dr. Marit van Gils is an Associate Professor in Virology at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers in The Netherlands. She completed her Ph.D., and postdoctoral research at the University of Amsterdam and partly at Scripps Research, San Diego, USA and started her own research group at the Amsterdam UMC, the Netherlands in 2017. Dr. Marit van Gils is focused on understanding and enhancing long-lasting antibody responses following vaccination, and the discovery and development of monoclonal antibodies for prophylactic and therapeutic applications, including HIV-1, Coronaviruses and Hemorrhagic fever viruses. Her discoveries have informed next-generation HIV vaccine designs and led to the development of potent monoclonal antibodies towards clinical application.

Kelly L Jordan-Sciutto, PhD (University of Pennsylvania, PA)

Kelly Jordan-Sciutto, PhD is Professor of Pathology in the Department of Oral Medicine in the School of Dental Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and co-Director of the Penn Mental Health AIDS Research Center and the Penn CFAR Scholars program at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in 1996 in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Thomas Jefferson University. Following post-doctoral training in Neuropathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, she accepted an Assistant Professor position at University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine in 2001, rising through the ranks to become Professor of Pathology at the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. Dr. Jordan-Sciutto received his first RO1 grant in 2001 and has been funded continuously by extramural funds since that time. Her research focuses on the investigation the molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuronal and oligodendrocyte death, dysfunction and damage during neuroinflammatory stress induced by HIV-infection. In addition, Dr. Jordan-Sciutto is interested in the contribution of antiretroviral therapy to cognitive dysfunction in people living with HIV. Her current investigations examine the role of organellar stress in neurons, oligodendrocytes, astrocytes and microglia in response to HIV infection of microglia in the context of antiretroviral drugs, with a particular focus on endoplasmic reticulum stress associated kinase, PERK, and alternative roles of the lysosome. For the past 12 years, we have focused substantial effort on the unique contribution of microglia and macrophages to changes in neuronal and glial function in the context of HIV infection, antiretroviral use and drugs of abuse. Using histopathologic assessment and a newly developed human induced pluripotent stem (iPSC) cell tri-culture model of neurons, astrocytes and microglia, we are examining the inter- and intra-cellular interplay among cells of the CNS in humans, particularly neuroinflammation in the context of HIV-infection. For the past 9 years, she has been developing human induced pluripotent stem cell models to examine the inter- and intra-cellular interplay among cells of the CNS in human context, particularly HIV-infection, which is a strictly human pathogen, and antiretroviral drugs. In collaboration with Dr. Kimberly Christian, she has developed a human iPSC-derived guided cerebral organoid with integrated microglia in which the impact of HIV on the developing CNS can be assessed. These models will permit us to ask mechanistic, genetic and pharmacologic questions in a human context and provide insight into therapeutic targets for HIV-induced CNS injury. It is hoped that her research will lead to novel adjunctive therapies to treat people with HIV and to ameliorate the side-effects of current antiretroviral therapy.

Purvesh Khatri, PhD (Stanford University)

Dr. Khatri is a Professor in the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection and Division of Computational Medicine in the Departments of Medicine and Biomedical Data Science at Stanford University. His research focuses on developing AI and machine learning-based computational frameworks for leveraging biological, clinical, and technical heterogeneity across independent heterogeneous data to accelerate clinical translation. His lab has applied these methods for identification of disease signatures that are diagnostic, prognostic, therapeutic and mechanistic across a broad spectrum of diseases including infections, autoimmune diseases, cancer, organ transplant, and vaccination. Several of these disease signatures have been translated into point-of-care tests with FDA clearance.

Ramkumar Menon, PhD (University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston)

Dr. Ramkumar Menon is a tenured professor and Director of the Division of Basic Science and Translational Research and Director of the Center for Reproductive Health at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, Texas. He has over 35 years of experience in reproductive and perinatal biology and is interested in understanding and preventing preterm birth. He is a pioneer in developing organ-on-chip-based models for human pregnancy research and developing them as drug development tools. His lab investigates exosome-based feto-maternal communication and explores the utility of exosomes as drug delivery vehicles.

Lishomwa C Ndhlovu, MD, PhD (Weill Cornell Medical College)

Lishomwa (Lish) Ndhlovu is the Herbert J. and Ann L. Siegel Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. The thrust of his research is confronting the challenges of HIV and aging and pioneering specific strategies to prevent, slow or eliminate complications associated with HIV. Combining immunology, virology and epigenetic methods, he is exploring molecular mechanisms of HIV neuropathogenesis and HIV persistence through pre-clinical and clinical investigations. He is the Principal Investigator of the NIMH-funded New York-New Jersey Center for Actionable NeuroHIV Biomarkers and Integrated Omics and co-leads the NIH-funded Martin Delaney Collaboratory for HIV cure, HOPE, and is a recipient of an NIH MERIT award for his research studying how stem cell transplantation leads to HIV cure. He also co-leads the NIDA-funded Weill Cornell -SCORCH consortium, documenting single cell substance use disorder responses in the brain in the setting of HIV. He serves as member on the NIAID Office of AIDS Research Advisory Committee and Co-Editor in Chief of the journal ‘AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses’. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2021 and a member of the American Association of Physicians in 2025.

Melanie Ott, MD, PhD (Gladstone Institute of Virology)

Melanie Ott, M.D., Ph.D. is the director and a senior investigator at the Gladstone Infectious Disease Institute, a senior vice president of Gladstone and a professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco. She studied under Nobel laureate Harald zur Hausen in Heidelberg/Germany and has been recognized for her contributions to HIV Cure research and the pathogenesis of hepatitis C and Zika virus infections. Since January 2020, she has pivoted part of her efforts to SARS-CoV-2 research. This work is focused on studying SARS-CoV-2 variants and harnessing the host response for new therapeutics using organoid technology. Her lab also develops new rapid diagnostics based on CRISPR and mobile phone technologies. She is the Program Director for the HOPE Collaboratory, a multi-disciplinary group of researchers from around the world and is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians (AAP) and a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM).

Rebecca R Pompano, PhD (University of Virginia)

Rebecca Pompano, PhD is a Professor of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia, and member of the Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology. Her laboratory develops analytical tools and microphysiological systems to model adaptive immunity, particularly in lymphoid tissue and its connections to other organs. She serves as on the Scientific Advisory Board for the NIH Complement-ARIE Novel Alternative Models Data Hub and Coordinating Center (NAMHub), and is a member of the MPS Cell Sourcing Working Group organized by the CAMO division at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. In 2025, she co-founded Lympha Bio, Inc. to translate lymphoid microphysiological systems (MPS) to accelerate drug and vaccine development.

Ankur Singh, PhD (Georgia Institute of Technology, GA)

Ankur Singh is the Carl Ring Family Professor at Georgia Tech, with a joint appointment in Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. He is the Director of the Georgia Tech Center for Immunoengineering. His lab develops human immune organoids and immune-competent systems to study immune cells and therapeutics. A Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, he has published over 85 articles in journals including Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, and Nature Biomedical Engineering, and received many awards. He has led foundational immunoengineering initiatives within scientific societies, including the Society for Biomaterials and the Controlled Release Society, and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Chicago Biohub.

James E Voss, PhD (The Scripps Research Institute, CA)

My lab is developing preclinical animal models to demonstrate that durable HIV broadly neutralizing antibody (bnAb) memory responses can be elicited from genome-edited primary B cells through vaccination. Here, the B cell antigen receptor is reprogrammed to express mature HIV bnAb sequences, and these edited cells are vaccinated to expand and differentiate into boostable memory and long-lived plasma cells capable of secreting durable, isotype-switched serum bnAbs. We are developing both an ex vivo edited B cell therapy approach in parallel with in vivo B cell editing and vaccination strategies in mice, NHPs, and human secondary lymphoid organoid cultures.

Lisa E Wagar, PhD (University of California)

Lisa Wagar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at the University of California, Irvine. Her lab investigates how the specialized microenvironment of lymphoid tissues regulates adaptive immune responses. Dr. Wagar's group uses an immune organoid model derived from human lymphoid tissues to study how a variety of host factors and antigen factors contribute to and explain inter-individual differences in vaccine, virus, and immunomodulatory therapy responses.

Day Three – Co-Chairs

David Chang, PhD (OAR, NIH)

Senior Science Advisor and supervisor of the Science Team at the NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR), where he provides scientific and technical leadership to help shape NIH HIV research priorities and coordinate HIV research across the agency. Dr. Chang joined OAR in 2023 with expertise in preclinical vaccine development and HIV molecular epidemiology. He leads the OAR HIV and Aging Signature Program, which advances research to address the long-term health needs of people aging with HIV, and the OAR Early Career Investigators Program, which provides resources and networking opportunities to support the next generation of HIV researchers. Before joining OAR, Dr. Chang served as a Scientific Review Officer at the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the NIH Center for Scientific Review. Earlier in his career, he worked in biotechnology on preclinical viral vaccine development and as a research scientist with the U.S. Military HIV Research Program at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, where he studied HIV molecular epidemiology in Asia and Africa. Dr. Chang earned his Ph.D. from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, where his research focused on HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins, broadly neutralizing antibodies, and disease progression.

Sai Majji, PhD (NICHD, NIH)

Sai Majji is a Health Scientist Administrator at the Maternal and Pediatric Infectious Disease Branch of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Her research portfolio includes pediatric immune system development and ontogeny, immune-prophylactics, therapeutics and host responses to HIV, TB and malaria infections in infants, children, and pregnant women and in regulatory affairs focusing on clinical trial safety and monitoring.

Yongjun Sui, PhD (ORIP, NIH)

Dr. Sui is a Program Officer in the NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP) and a T-cell and mucosal immunologist with expertise in HIV/SIV pathogenesis, antiviral immunity, and vaccine-induced protection. At ORIP, she provides scientific and programmatic oversight for research infrastructure, comparative model systems, and initiatives that integrate established preclinical models with human-relevant new approach methodologies to improve the rigor and translational relevance of biomedical research. Before joining ORIP, Dr. Sui served for 17 years as a Staff Scientist in the Vaccine Branch, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute. Her research focused on mucosal and systemic T-cell responses, immune regulation at barrier tissues, interactions between innate and adaptive immunity, and immune correlates of protection in HIV/SIV and other viral infections. She used nonhuman primate and other preclinical models to investigate viral pathogenesis and to develop and evaluate mucosal vaccine strategies.

Day Three – Presenters and Panelists

Dr. Mackenzie Cottrell, PharmD (University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy)

Dr. Mackenzie Cottrell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacy: Clinical and Administrative Sciences at the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy and Master of Science in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Oklahoma before completing postdoctoral fellowship training in clinical pharmacology at UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Her laboratory integrates analytical chemistry with pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modeling to understand how drug distribution and exposure influence therapeutic efficacy. Her research develops innovative modeling approaches to accelerate the translation of novel medical technologies and optimize dosing strategies for the prevention, treatment, and eventual cure of HIV.

Doug Kwon, MD, PhD (Harvard Medical School)

Doug Kwon is a physician-scientist at Harvard Medical School and Director of Clinical Operations at the Ragon Institute of Mass Gen, MIT and Harvard. He has a clinical practice in the division of Infectious Diseases at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The focus of his research is understanding host-microbiota interactions in the female genital tract, gut, and lung that impact mucosal immunity and human disease, particularly those that disproportionately impact low-resource settings. His lab is involved in developing and applying new technologies to overcome the technical barriers that have impeded our understanding of mucosal immunity to date.

Oleg Mirochnitchenko, PhD (ORIP, NIH)

Oleg Mirochnitchenko is a Program Director at the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP)/DPCPSI/OD at NIH. Dr. Mirochnitchenko received a M.S. in biochemistry with honors and a Ph.D. in molecular biology. As a Principal Scientist at the Institute of Biotechnology, he worked on development of recombinant viruses for gene therapy and use of the antisense RNA and ribozymes to control gene expression. He came to the NIH in 2010 from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, NJ, where he was a faculty member at the Department of Biochemistry for 20 years. His laboratory developed a research program focused on animal model systems to study cellular behavior in stress conditions that lead to tissue damage and development of variety of chronic human diseases. At the Division of Comparative Medicine at ORIP he has a portfolio of extramural projects which includes rodent-related resources, stem cell biology/regenerative medicine grants, Pilot Centers for Precision Disease Modeling, trans-NIH research initiatives (Somatic Cell Genome Editing Initiative, Knockout Mice Phenotyping Project) and regular research grants. These projects focus on exploration of animal models for biomedical research and support activities to develop and broaden the utility of these models for basic science and translational applications.

Robert F. Siliciano, MD, PhD (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine)

Robert Siliciano is a Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is an immunologist and virologist recognized for his work on the treatment of HIV infection. He is known particularly for identifying and characterizing the latent reservoir for HIV in resting CD4+ T cells. This reservoir is the major barrier to curing HIV infection and the subject of an intense international research effort. Siliciano was born in Rochester, New York and grew up in Elmira, New York. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in chemistry and then received an MD and a PhD in immunology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. After a postdoctoral fellowship in immunology at Harvard Medical School, he joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1988. He has been a member of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2002 and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Lishan Su, PhD (University of Maryland School of Medicine)

Dr. Lishan Su is Charles Gordon Smith Endowed Professor for HIV Research at Institute of Human Virology in University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM). Dr. Su received his PhD training in Virology from Harvard University and did his post-doctoral fellowship in Immunology at Stanford University. Since 2021, Dr. Su has joined the Institute of Human Virology at UMSOM. The Su laboratory studies how HIV-1 and HBV interact with human immune cells to cause inflammatory diseases. Using HIV-1 as a probe, Dr. Su has directed his research programs to dissect human immune cells and pathways involved in inflammatory diseases. His group has discovered and focused on the pDC/IFN-I axis in the immuno-pathogenesis and therapy of HIV-1 infection and its associated inflammatory diseases. The group has also investigated the role of pDC/IFN-I in cancer immunology and developed therapeutics targeting such pathways to treat human inflammatory diseases.