Faculty

Research Interests:

• Prevention and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders.
• Individual differences in behavioral disinhibition and decision-making with respect to the development and maintenance of chronic neuropsychiatric disorders.
• Glutamatergic neurotransmission and disinhibition of cortical top-down output in different facets of impulsive-compulsive traits.

Dr. Anastasio's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Molecular basis of virulence and antigenic variations between West Nile virus (WNV) strains
• Arbovirus vaccines and diagnostics
• Good Laboratory Practices (GLP)
• Animal models for infectious diseases

Dr. Beasley's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Pathogenesis and transmission of tick‐borne hemorrhagic fever viruses, BSL4, hemorrhagic fevers, animal models, tick vector biology, host‐vector‐virus interactions.

Dr. Bente's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Neuroprotective clinical trials in focal cerebral ischemia
• Monitoring techniques in critically ill patients with acute brain injury from diverse etiologies
• In vivo pathophysiological mechanisms of ischemic neuronal injury in appropriate animal models of cerebral ischemia
• In vivo regional neurochemistry in brain injury paradigms
  Pathophysiological mechanisms in cerebral ischemia-evoked cerebral edema
• Pharmacological neuroprotection in ischemic stroke
• Osmotherapy in brain injury
  
  

Research Interests:

• Blood-Brain Barrier
• Cerebral Small Vessel Disease
• Histopathology of Viral Encephalitis

Dr. Cambell's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Opioid self-administration, impulsivity and CNS innate immunity
• Cocaine and regulation of astrocyte mitochondrial antiviral signaling (MAVS) protein during CNS viral infection
• HIV-1 and cocaine astrocyte-induced innate immunity: AIM(2)ing at the inflammasome

Dr. Cisneros' UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Bioengineering
• Pulmonary Physiology and Lung Replacement
  

Research Interests:

• Neuropsychopharmacology of abused drugs and psychotherapeutics
• Neurobiology of behavior
• New target and drug discovery in neuropsychiatric conditions

Dr. Cunningham's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and related amyloidopathies, tauopathies, synucleinopathies.
• Animal models for cognitive decline in neurodegenerative disease utilizing genetic and pharmacological manipulations.
• Cocaine abuse and cue-induced relapse following abstinence; protection with PPARγ nuclear receptor agonism.
• Nuclear receptor (PPARγ), ERK MAPK, CREB, CBP, nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, protein-protein interactions.
• Omics approaches to generate hypotheses that test key players and mechanisms for cognitive and operant disorders resulting from aging, neurodegenerative disease, and drug abuse.

Dr. Dineley's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Mechanisms and regulation of cell mediated immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb).
• Natural killer cell function in infectious disease (M.tb, B. anthracis) and reproduction.
• Identify mechanisms whereby the CD8+T cell subset can be targeted by vaccine adjuvants and/or antigens.

Dr. Endsley's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• HIV-1
• Macrophages
• Human IgA-inducing protein

Dr. Endlsey's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• The role of cellular communication through gap junctions, tunneling nanotubes, hemichannels and ATP receptors during the pathogenesis of NeuroHIV.
• Identification of brain Biomarkers of dementia.
• Glioblastomas
• Heart disease and cell to cell communication

Dr. Eugenin's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Brain tumors
• Neurodegenerative diseases

Dr. Felicella's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Molecular mechanisms by which emerging RNA viruses cause encephalitis and hemorrhagic fever diseases.
• Host innate immune response and activation of cellular signaling pathways following viral infection, with a major interest on infections caused by Nipah and Hendra viruses, Tick-borne encephalitis viruses, as well as Rift Valley fever virus.

Dr. Freiburg's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Oxidative response networks and inflammation in Chagasic Cardiomyopathy.
• Vaccine efficacy against T. cruzi and Chagas disease.
• Strategies for the elimination of tropical infectious diseases.

Dr. Garg's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Neuropathogenesis of HIV infection.
  
  

Dr. Gelman's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• The role of frustration in neuropsychiatric conditions
• Environmental enrichment and protective phenotypes for addiction- and depression-related behavior in rats

Dr. Green's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Obesity and eating disorders
• CNS circuits that regulate food addiction and motivation for energy-dense foods
• Viral-mediated gene knockdown, immunohistochemistry, neuronal tracing, and fluorescent in situ hybridization in multiple animal models of eating behavior and obesity

Research Interests:

•  Host-virus interactions and antiviral immunity in HIV/AIDS and emerging viral infections.
• Countermeasures to combat these life-threatening viral diseases.
  

Dr. Hu's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• To understand the pathological mechanisms caused by viral virulence factors, we characterize host responses to NSs or NSm/78kD proteins or their mutants using the reverse genetics approach.
• We newly generated the RVax-1 candidate vaccine, which encodes 566 silent mutations and a deletion of 78kD/NSm gene in the MP-12 strain backbone. In collaboration with UTMB SIVS, we characterize the safety and protective efficacy of this candidate vaccine.
• We characterize nonpathogenic phleboviruses to generate live chimeric vaccine candidates to protect from pathogenic bunyaviruses.
• We investigate molecular mechanisms of potent antivirals for RVF.

Dr. Ikegami's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Synaptic Mechanisms Involved in Long-term Memory Mechanisms

Dr. Krishnan's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Molecular biology and genetics of the inner ear
• Auditory and vestibular disorders (human and mouse models)
• Balance disorders, hearing loss, and deafness

Dr. Makishima's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Nanopulsed laser therapy for the treatment of traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative brain disorders and the development of mechanisms for resistance to Alzheimer’s disease.
• Neural stem cells and stem cell transplantation.

Dr. Micci's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Development of a multi-modal imaging platform for high-resolution cellular and molecular imaging of the retina.

Dr. Motamedi's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Molecular biology
• Viral pathogenesis
• Vaccine/antivirals
• Diagnostics development

Dr. Paessler's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Pathogenic mechanisms of infectious disease using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry and imaging technologies.
• Elucidating host-pathogen interactions at the cellular level.
• MSI-based lipidomic and metabolomic techniques to study the in-situ pathogenesis of many viral and bacterial infectious diseases including HIV, Tuberculosis, Cerebral Malaria, Meliodosis, and Pneumonic Plague.

Dr. Prideaux's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Arboviruses, Zika virus, vaccines, alphaviruses, flaviviruses, and animal models.

Dr. Rossi's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• CD4+ T cell memory to blood stages of Plasmodium chabaudi chabaudi (AS), mouse malaria
• Effector function (Th1, Tfh) commitment in memory cells in malaria
• Vaccine strategies to generate protective effector memory T cells
• B cell memory and splenic microenvironment

Dr. Stephens' UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Musculoskeletal diseases
• Cartilage and bone regeneration
• Tissue engineering
• Skeletal stem cells

Dr. Salisbury's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

Research Interests:

• Immune responses to virus infection and inflammatory diseases
• Zika, dengue, yellow fever, hepatitis C, and West Nile viruses

Dr. Sun's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Investigation and application of emerging optical techniques for monitoring of disease processes or injury.
• Tissue microstructure and optical signals.

Dr. Vargas' UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Basic research on evolution and pathogenesis of arthropod-borne viruses, virus – mosquito, virus – host interactions and vaccine development.
• Role of viral intra-genic variation in transmission dynamics and emergence.
• Vaccine development.
• Discovery and characterization of novel/new viruses.

Dr. Vasilakis' UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Mechanisms of emerging and re-emerging RNA viruses, such as West Nile virus, Zika virus, Powassan virus, Chikungunya virus, and Sars-CoV-2.
• Host immune responses to viruses and candidate vaccines, vaccine development, and antiviral agents.

Dr. Wang's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Ecology, epidemiology, evolution, and pathogenesis of arboviral diseases; vaccine development.

Dr. Weaver's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Molecular mechanisms of plasticity, multipotential and trophic factor secretion of neural stem cells (NSCs).
• Applying both human and rodent NSCs and their differentiated neural cells to mimic traumatic brain or spinal cord injury, alcohol and cocaine abuse, neural infection (such as Zika virus, henipavirus, and HIV), and neurodegenerative diseases such ALS.

Dr. Wu's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Mechanisms of retinal injury in ischemic retinopathy such as diabetic retinopathy, retinopathy of prematurity and glaucoma.
• Pathology of ischemic retinopathy: retinal neuronal injury, retinal vascular leakage and degeneration, and retinal pathological angiogenesis.

Dr. Zhang's UTMB profile

Research Interests:

• Medicinal chemistry and drug discovery of novel small molecules as unique pharmacological tools or potential drug candidates for the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disorders and infectious diseases.
  
  

Dr. Zhou's UTMB profile