• Research Interests
• Education
• Honors
• Professional Affiliations
• Selected Publications

• • B cell immunology
  • Vaccine development
  • Metabolic regulation of humoral immunity

• Doctor of Philosophy in Biology	Northeastern University	Boston, Massachusetts	2016
  Master of Science in Cardiopulmonary and Exercise Science	Northeastern University	Boston, Massachusetts	2010
  Bachelor of Science in Cardiopulmonary and Exercise Science	Northeastern University	Boston, Massachusetts	2010
  Bachelor of Science in Behavioral Neuroscience	Northeastern University	Boston, Massachusetts	2010

• University of Texas Rising STARS award	8/2022
  NIH New Innovator Award (DP2 grant, NIAID)	12/2021
  CHAVI-ID Young Investigator Award for Outstanding Contributions to HIV/AIDS Vaccine Research	01/2019
  NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award (NIAID)	2019

   

• • American Association for Immunologists (AAI)
  • Gulf Coast Consortia (GCC)
• • Padilla MV, Weidner NG, Pruitt L, Cottrell CA, Gonzales K, Kalyuzhniy O, Lu D, Alavi N, Phelps N, Aniqua M, Waldrep K, Keller EJ, Weglarz M, Schief WR*, Abbott RK*. Immunization with mosaic nanoparticles reveals that antigen avidity shapes the clonal hierarchy of the B cell response. Science Translational Medicine. 2026; 18, eaee5425. PMID:42585293 (selected for the cover of the August 12th issue)* = Corresponding author
    
    
  • Weidner NG, Padilla MV, Pruitt L, Cottrell CA, Gonzales K, Kalyuzhniy O, Lu D, Alavi N, Phelps N, Aniqua M, Waldrep KM, Keller EJ, Weglarz M, Schief WR*, Abbott RK*. Antigen avidity potentiates the durability of the vaccine immune response. Science Translational Medicine. 2026; 18, eaee5273. PMID:42585296 (selected for the cover of the August 12th issue) * = Corresponding author
    
    
  • Kuzmin IV, Acosta RS, Pruitt L, Wasdin PT, Kedarinath K, Hernandez KR, Gonzales KA, Hill K, Weidner NG, Mire C, Engdahl TB, Moon WJ, Popov V, Crowe JE, Georgiev IS, Garcia-Blanco MA, Abbott RK*, Bukreyev A*. Comparison of uridine and N1-methylpseudouridine mRNA platforms in development of an Andes virus vaccine.
    Nat Commun. 2024;15(1):6421. PMCID: PMC11289437 * = Corresponding author.
    
    
  • Huang D**, Abbott RK**, Havenar-Daughton C, Skog PD, Al-Kolla R, Groschel B, Blane TR, Menis S, Tran JT, Thinnes TC, Volpi SA, Liguori A, Schiffner T, Villegas SM, Kalyuzhniy O, Pintea M, Voss JE, Phelps N, Tingle R, Rodriguez AR, Martin G, Kupryianov S, deCamp A, Schief WR, Nemazee D, Crotty S. B cells expressing authentic naive human VRC01-class BCRs can be recruited to germinal centers and affinity mature in multiple independent mouse models. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA [Internet]. 2020 Sep 1;202004489. ** = equal contribution.
    
    
  • Abbott RK, Lee JH, Menis S, Skog P, Rossi M, Ota T, Kulp DW, Bhullar D, Kalyuzhniy O, Havenar-Daughton C, Schief WR, Nemazee D, Crotty S. Precursor Frequency and Affinity Determine B Cell Competitive Fitness in Germinal Centers, Tested with Germline-Targeting HIV Vaccine Immunogens. Immunity. 2018;48. PMID: 29287996
    
    
  • Abbott RK*, Thayer M, Labuda J, Silva M, Philbrook P, Cain DW, Kojima H, Hatfield S, Sethumadhavan S, Ohta A, Reinherz EL, Kelsoe G, Sitkovsky M. Germinal Center Hypoxia Potentiates Immunoglobulin Class Switch Recombination. J Immunol. 2016;197(10):4014–4020. PMID: 27798169. * = Corresponding author