麻豆传媒

Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D. serves as President and CEO of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. She is one of the world’s leading experts in pandemic and emerging viruses, such as Ebola, Marburg and Lassa. Dr. Saphire directs the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Immunotherapeutic Consortium (VIC), an NIH-funded Center of Excellence in Translational Research. The VIC unites 43 previously competing academic, industrial and government labs across five continents to understand which antibodies are most effective in patients and to streamline the research pipeline to provide antibody therapeutics against Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and other viruses. Dr. Saphire's research explains, at the molecular level, how and why viruses like Ebola and Lassa are pathogenic and provides the roadmap for developing antibody-based treatments. Her team has solved the structures of the Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, Bundibugyo and Lassa virus glycoproteins, explained how they remodel these structures as they drive themselves into cells, how their proteins suppress immune function and where human antibodies can defeat these viruses. A recent discovery revealed why neutralizing antibodies had been so difficult to elicit against Lassa virus, and provided not only the templates for the needed vaccine, but the molecule itself: a Lassa surface glycoprotein engineered to remain in the right conformation to inspire the needed antibody response. This molecule is the basis for international vaccine efforts against Lassa.
Dr. Saphire is the recipient of numerous accolades and grants, including the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering presented by President Obama at the White House; the Gallo Award for Scientific Excellence and Leadership from the Global Virus Network; young investigator awards from the International Congress of Antiviral Research, the American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the MRC Centre for Virus Research in the United Kingdom; the Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the Surhain Sidhu award for the most outstanding contribution to the field of diffraction by a person within five years of the Ph.D. Dr. Saphire has been awarded a Fulbright Global Scholar fellowship from the United States Department of State and a Mercator Fellowship from the German research foundation, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, to develop international collaborations around human health and molecular imaging through cryoelectron microscopy.
Dr. Saphire received a B.A. in biochemistry and cell biology and ecology and evolutionary biology from Rice University in Houston, Texas, and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Scripps Research. She stayed on at Scripps Research as a Research Associate to conduct postdoctoral research and rose through the ranks to become a Professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology. In early 2019, Dr. Saphire joined La Jolla Institute for Immunology to establish a molecular imaging facility for cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) at the Institute. The extremely detailed images produced by cryo-EM reveal precisely how essential mechanisms of the immune system operate.

Losos is an internationally renowned scholar in the field of evolutionary biology. In partnership with the Missouri Botanical Garden and the St. Louis Zoo, Losos leads the Living Earth Collaborative, an academic center dedicated to advancing the study of biodiversity. The Living Earth Collaborative serves as a hub to facilitate interdisciplinary research among plant and animal biologists and other scholars across a wide range of fields, bringing together the world鈥檚 leading scholars in the field of biodiversity to address the most pressing issue facing humankind today 鈥� the ability to sustain life on Earth. 

Arianne Cease is a sustainability scientist who works to understand how human-plant-insect interactions affect the sustainability of agricultural systems.

A major focus is on locust plagues and phenotypic plasticity in response to agricultural practices in China, Australia, West Africa and South America. She investigates the interactions among human behavior, market forces, and ecological systems in situations in which human decisions to overstock and overgraze rangeland alter plant nutrient content, increasing the likelihood of locust outbreaks. A key goal of her research is to improve sustainable ecosystem management and rural livelihoods.

Cease is an assistant professor in the School of Sustainability and the School of Life Sciences. She is also director of ASU鈥檚 Global Locust Initiative.

Lauren Ancel Meyers is the Cooley Centennial Professor of Integrative Biology and Statistics & Data Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin and a member of the Santa Fe Institute External Faculty. She was trained as a mathematical biologist at Harvard and Stanford Universities and has been a pioneer in the field of network epidemiology and the application of machine learning to improve outbreak detection, forecasting and control.

Professor Meyers leads an interdisciplinary team of scientists, engineers, and public health experts in uncovering the social and biological drivers of epidemics and building practical tools for the CDC and other global health agencies to track and mitigate emerging viral threats, including COVID-19, pandemic influenza, Ebola, HIV, and Zika. Her research has been published in over 100 peer-reviewed articles in major journals and covered by the popular press, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, CNN and the BBC. Professor Meyers was named as one of the top 100 global innovators under age 35 by the MIT Technology Review in 2004 and received the Joseph Lieberman Award for Significant Contributions to Science in 2017.

Awards & Fellowships

2018- Denton A. Cooley Centennial Professorship, UT
2017 Joseph Lieberman Award for Significant Contributions to Science
2011-2013, 16-18 William H. and Gladys G. Reeder Faculty Fellow, UT
2006-2010, 14-15 Fellow, University of Texas Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology
2013 Center for Excellence in Education - Excellence and Achievement Award
2010-2011 Donald D. Harrington Faculty Fellowship, UT
2005 College of Natural Sciences Teaching Excellence Award, University of Texas
2004 MIT Technology Review TR100: One of 100 Top Global Innovators Under 35
2000-2002 National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biological Informatics
2000-2002 Santa Fe Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship
2000 Samuel Karlin Prize for Ph.D Thesis in Mathematical Biology
1999 Steinmetz Fellowship, Santa Fe Institute
1996-1999 National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellowship
1991-1995 U.S. Congressional National Science Scholar

Auslander focuses on developing machine learning methods to understand genetic and infectious factors that drive cancer evolution and identify patterns that can improve cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Auslander earned her B.S. in computer science and biology from Tel Aviv University and continued her studies in Maryland, where she obtained a computer science Ph.D. from the University of Maryland with a combined fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. She received postdoctoral training at the National Center of Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and joined The Wistar Institute in 2021 as an assistant professor.

Dr. Alexis Janosik is an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator in the Department of Biology her research focuses on molecular ecology and evolution of invertebrates and fishes. Janosik鈥檚 research includes Environmental DNA, the evolutionary history of invertebrates and fish, Antarctica and the Gulf of Mexico, and phylogeography, the study of population genetics and the historical processes that may be responsible for the contemporary geographic distributions of individuals. Some of her most recent research focuses on the phylogeography of invertebrates of the Gulf of Mexico and on Environmental DNA (eDNA) of Gulf and Alabama Sturgeon.

Janosik previously examined environmental DNA as a tool for detecting imperiled fishes and conducted research on the evolutionary history of Southern Ocean seastar species and unrecognized Antarctic biodiversity, among other topics. Janosik has made three research trips to the Antarctic and one to the Atlantic Continental Shelf. Janosik鈥檚 work has been published in Environmental Biology of Fishes, Marine Biology, Polar Biology, and others.

Janosik has two degrees from Auburn University 鈥� a Ph.D. in Biology and a B.S. in Marine Biology. Her dissertation was titled 鈥淪eeing Stars: A Molecular and Morphological Investigation of Odontasteridae (Asteroidea).鈥� Among the courses she teaches: Concepts of Oceanography & Marine Biology, Biology of Coral Reefs, Marine Mammalogy, and Tropical Marine Ecology in the Bahamas

Degrees & Institutions:
Ph.D. Biology, Auburn University
B.S. Marine Biology, Auburn University

Research:
Janosik鈥檚 research includes Environmental DNA, evolutionary history of invertebrates and fish, Antarctica and the Gulf of Mexico, and phylogeography, the study of population genetics and the historical processes that may be responsible for the contemporary geographic distributions of individuals. Some of her most recent research focuses on the phylogeography of invertebrates of the Gulf of Mexico and on Environmental DNA (eDNA) of Gulf and Alabama Sturgeon.

LJI Associate Professor Sonia Sharma, Ph.D., is an expert in using unbiased, genome-scale approaches to unravel innate immunity, the body’s early immune response to microbial pathogens and neoplastic cells. Innate immunity has also been implicated as a common causal factor in many inflammatory, allergic and autoimmune diseases. Dr. Sharma integrates cutting-edge genetics, biochemistry, cell biology, computational and translational approaches to define the key genetic mechanisms regulating cellular innate immunity and determine how they impact human health and disease.
Dr. Sharma has an outstanding record of research accomplishments, including high impact discoveries published in top scientific journals. Her work has made her an internationally recognized expert in the use of high throughput, genome scale approaches, in particular RNA interference and CRISPR/Cas9, to dissect complex cellular signaling pathways and questions of immunological relevance. Her use of these technologies is a powerful tool that can be applied to any cellular pathway or disease process.
Dr. Sharma also directs the La Jolla Institute for Immunology's Sex-Based Differences in the Immune System Initiative, which aims to shed light on why many diseases affect men and women differently.

Tamas Varga leads a team of researchers in the Biogeochemical Transformations team. He has been a senior research scientist at EMSL since 2009. He received his PhD in Chemistry in 2005 from Georgia Institute of Technology following his MS in Chemistry from the University of Debrecen, and MS in Economics from the University of Miskolc, both in Hungary.
Before PNNL, he spent his postdoctoral years at the University of California, Davis (2005-2007) and Argonne National Laboratory (2007-2009). He supports the X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray computed tomography (XCT) user program at EMSL, maintains the XRD and XCT facilities in part, and develops his own research program utilizing EMSL's capabilities and those at other national user facilities for collaborative research. As part of user support, he performs XRD characterization of various types of samples (powder, thin film, etc.), and XCT imaging of a range of materials (biological, geological, etc.).
He has published over 110 journal articles, a book chapter, and given several invited talks at conferences and research institutions. He has also been active in scientific editing, conference chairing, proposal review panels in the materials science and synchrotron science areas, and mentoring the younger generation in science.

Dr. Steve Stice is a University of Georgia, DW Brooks Distinguished Professor and Director of the Regenerative Bioscience Center, who holds a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar endowed chair, and is CSO of ArunA Biomedical Inc. He has over 30 years of research and development experience in biotechnology and is a co-founder of several biotech start-ups, including ArunA Biomedical; the first company to commercialize a product derived from human pluripotent stem cells, and cell development used to facilitate approval of Pfizer’s current cognitive enhancing pharmaceuticals.
Prior to joining UGA, Stice was the co-founder and served as both CSO and CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, the first USA Company to advance to human clinical trials using human pluripotent stem cells. Additionally, he co-founded startups; Prolinia and Cytogenesis which later merged with what is now, ViaCyte.
Outside of his academic professorship and business role, Stice co-directs The Regenerative Engineering and Medicine research center, or REM, a joint collaboration between Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology and UGA, and is also a group leader of EBICS: Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems, a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As an invited member, he sits on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and is serving on the Governing Committee of the first institute funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC); National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL), the eleventh institute in the Manufacturing USA government network.
Stice is a world-renown expert in the field of pluripotent stem cell biology. In 2001, he directed work on derivation of three human pluripotent stem cell lines which were approved for federal funding by the NIH and President Bush. One of several noteworthy achievements for Stice, was producing the first cloned rabbit in 1987 and the first cloned transgenic calves in 1998 (George and Charlie). In 1997 his group produced the first genetically modified embryonic stem cell derived pigs and cattle. Notably, the Stice lab was one of only five NIH sponsored sites for training NIH investigators on the propagation, differentiation and use of hESC over a six year period.
Currently, the Stice lab is developing novel therapies and new technologies for drug screening and neurodegenerative disease, which could change the lives of those suffering with Parkinson’s, Stroke injury, and Alzheimer’s. This research has led to publications in Science and Nature journals, national news coverage (CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN) and the first US patents on cloning animals and cattle stem cells which was featured in the Wall Street Journal. Most recently, Stice was elected to NAI Fellow status, the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors. Georgia Bio also honored Stice that same year with the 2017 Georgia Bio Industry Growth Award.

Dr Jennifer M. Yeh is a decision scientist whose research focuses on improving health outcomes at the population level. She is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr Yeh has an M.S. in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a PhD in Health Policy from Harvard University. She has extensive experience applying decision-analytic modelling and cost-effectiveness analysis methods to evaluate clinical guidelines and inform health policy. Her research identifies opportunities to improve cancer control efforts spanning across the cancer continuum from prevention to survivorship. She is funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD), and the American Cancer Society (ACS).

Daniel King, MD, PhD, is a former Howard Hughes research scholar at the National Institutes of Health and trained in genomics and bioinformatics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, where he developed software tools to perform mosaic copy number detection. During his time at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, he spearheaded copy number analysis for 36,000 exome samples in the Deciphering Developmental Disorder Rare Disease project. The results from this work characterized unprecedented detail in the landscape and architecture of developmental disorders, was published in Nature and Lancet, and led to several first author publications.
Following medical and graduate school, Dr. King pursued a medical oncology fellowship under the ABIM Research Track pathway at Stanford University. A core focus of his fellowship research involved circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), which included the computational design of a ctDNA detection panel for pancreas cancer and laboratory validation. This work extended to fragmentomics—a computational analysis of circulating DNA fragment ends as a biomarker of cancer for early detection. From here, Dr. King created a large biobank of pancreas cancer specimens consisting of nearly 500 clinical blood samples from approximately 250 patients. He went on to link this biobank with a large clinical research database built in pancreatic cancer to mine and associate clinical data with translational correlates.

Dr. Lisa Waidner, an Assistant Professor, has a Ph.D. from the College of Marine Science at the University of Delaware. Before she joined UWF in 2016, Waidner had the unique opportunity to work in several small biotechnology companies in the capacity of genetic engineering, phylogenetics, and directed evolution to improve biofuel and bioenergy-producing microorganisms.  Her academic mentors were Richard Karpel (UMBC, M.S. program), David Kirchman (Delaware, Ph.D. program), Thomas Hanson (Delaware, post-doctoral position), and co-mentors Robin Morgan and Joan Burnside (Delaware, post-doctoral fellowship). 
Her findings have been published in the Journal of Shellfish Research, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Virology, and Environmental Virology. Topics have included aspects of Marek’s disease, virioplankton populations, and crab populations near the mouth of the Delaware Bay. Waidner’s current research interests are in environmental microbiology, microbial ecology, and bioremediation in oceans, coastal waters, inland bays, and rivers. 
These studies include developing a better understanding of global elemental cycles, as well as ‘applied’ bioremediation research.  Her work uses model bacteria called the aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs (AAP), which are a diverse group of proteobacteria that may be involved in light-stimulated uptake of dissolved organic matter and of point-source pollution and legacy contaminants.  Cultured and uncultured AAP are used in molecular biological, microbiological, and ecological studies on this diverse group of freshwater, estuarine, and marine bacteria. Dr. Waidner has taught classes in Introduction to Bioinformatics and Environmental Genomics and is currently a UWF instructor for Genetics Lab.  She is now working with undergraduate students to characterize unique AAP bacteria from coastal and inland waters in and around the Pensacola Bay system.

Rowley earned his B.A. at the University of Warwick in England, which introduced him to the fascinating aspects of microbiology and biochemistry. After working in the food safety industry, he began a doctorate program studying the biology of bacterial viruses and the molecular mechanisms of the phiC31 integrase protein at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

Upon relocating to Texas, he studied the molecular mechanisms of a recombinase from a parasitic yeast plasmid and the replication of viruses that infect fungi and primates. He continued this work as a postdoc at the Biofrontiers Institute at Colorado University Boulder, CO. These projects gave  Rowley a broad base of expertise used techniques from molecular biology, biochemistry and evolution, that are applied in his current research projects.

Amanda works in collaboration with SciTech’s experts to execute analyses focused on the technical, environmental, social, and economical opportunities and bottlenecks for alternative proteins. Amanda joins GFI with nine years of experience in the private sector leading research and analyses to improve the management and clean-up of high-risk chemicals used in industrial operations. She holds a Ph.D. in environmental toxicology from Duke University and a B.S. in biology from the University of North Georgia. Outside of GFI, Amanda serves on the board of directors of an animal rescue and as the director of a food rescue site in Georgia, where she lives.