A new UNC Newsroom article on Kizzy Corbett (Aravinda de Silva’s lab) discusses her background, her research on dengue virus, and the fellowship that will take her to Sri Lanka Corbett continues quest for dengue fever vaccine

A new Blood First Edition paper from Jon Serody’s lab uses multiphoton laser-scanning microscopy to study the interactions between donor T cells, dendritic cells, and regulatory T cells in lymph nodes after transplantation. See the article at the link below, and don’t miss the cool movies in the Supplemental Materials! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24415540

Victor Garcia’s lab addresses the longstanding problem of HIV persistence in a new PLOS Pathogens paper that takes advantage of their bone marrow/liver/thymus (BLT) humanized mouse system. They combine antiretroviral therapy with an immunotoxin designed to target the conserved CD4 binding site of HIV-1 gp120, and they show a dramatic reduction in persistent virus throughout … Read more

RNAseq analysis is combined with phylogenetics in this new PLOS Pathogens paper from the labs of Jeff Dangl and Sarah Grant. By characterizing the HrpL regulon across six diverse strains of P. syringae, they identify novel putative virulence factors and two novel type III effector families. See the article at the link below. http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1003807;jsessionid=36F2FDBCC0829F3F478B5F12B4C77DCE

The current online Early Edition of PNAS features a collaboration between the labs of Aravinda de Silva and Ralph Baric that has broad implications for designing and improving vaccines for viral infections. They demonstrate that a specific region on the viral surface (the envelope domain I/II hinge) is the primary target for serotype-specific neutralizing antibodies … Read more

It’s Christmas morning and I’m happy to relay a nice surprise that brings 2013 to a satisfying close, thanks to newly released data on NIH awards. Based on current NIH funding levels, our Department now ranks 8th among all microbiology/immunology departments at medical schools. And in comparison with these departments at our peer institutions (public … Read more

Metrics to evaluate scientists are always controversial, but a trend is to assess the impact of your research based on how often your papers are cited, rather than where you’ve published them. The h-index is one such metric: an h-index of 25 means that 25 of your papers have been cited at least 25 times. … Read more

Congratulations to M&I graduate student Kizzi Corbett for winning this UNC fellowship that will support her research in Sri Lanka this Spring! For the past 12 years, the de Silva laboratory has been collaborating with investigators in Sri Lanka to study the epidemiology of dengue, the most significant mosquito-borne viral infection of humans. For her … Read more

At the December 15, 2013 American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting, Victor Garcia will receive an award in memory of Ernest Everett Just (1883-1941), the pioneering African-American scientist. Victor will deliver the E.E. Just Lecture in New Orleans during the ASCB Annual Meeting and a reflective article on his life and his research has … Read more

Yisong Wan won this prestigious award established by the UNC Medical Foundation through the generosity of the Jefferson-Pilot Corporation. This annual award is given to junior faculty members at the School of Medicine in recognition of both past performance and future promise in research. M&I faculty who have received this award during the past 40 … Read more