Location:
Berg Family Foundation Seminar Room, Level 6, Wallace Wurth Building, Kensington Campus, UNSW Sydney
Contact for enquiries
Rata Joseph, +61 (2) 9385 0900 or recpt@kirby.unsw.edu.au
Kirby Institute Seminar Series presents
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Associate Director, Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute; Professor, Pathobiology and Immunology Division, Oregon National Primate Research Center; and Professor, Oregon Health & Science University |
About your speaker
Dr Louis J. Picker is currently the Associate Director of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, a Professor in the Pathobiology and Immunology Division of the Oregon National Primate Research Center, and a Professor in the Oregon Health & Science University’s (OHSU) Departments of Pathology and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Dr Picker was recruited to OHSU in 2000 from the Department of Pathology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas where he served as a Principal Investigator, Medical Director of the Flow Cytometry and Clinical Immunology Laboratory, and Co-Director of the Division of Hematopathology and Immunology. He received his medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco in 1982, did an internship, residency, and chief residency in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at the Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts from 1982–86, and received advanced training in Immunopathology and Experimental Pathology at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, California from 1986–89. Dr Picker is known for his work elucidating human/nonhuman primate (NHP) memory T cell biology, T cell mediated mechanisms of protection against persistent pathogens, the immunopathogenesis of AIDS, HIV/AIDS, and TB vaccine development.
Abstract
Cytomegalovirus has co-evolved over millions of years with its primate hosts, developing a unique immunobiologic relationship characterised by persistent, low-level infection, extraordinary high frequency, circulating and resident, effector-differentiated T cell responses, and unconventional CD8+ T cell restriction. Our group has exploited these characteristics to develop vaccine vectors with unprecedented efficacy against immune evasive pathogens. This talk will describe this unusual biology and how it might be channeled towards efficacious vaccines.