Seminars in Infection & Immunity

SPRING 2023

Friday, January 27, 2023

Immune Control of Gut Mucus-Associated Commensals

Craig Maynard, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Pathology, Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology
Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Hosted by: Mandy McGeachy, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, February 3, 2023

Teaching the Teachers: Crosstalk Between Thymocytes and Thymic APCs

Lauren Ehrlich, PhD
Associate Professor
Lorene Morrow Kelley Fellow
Department of Molecular Biosciences
Department of Oncology, Dell Medical School
University of Texas at Austin

Hosted by: Brian Rudd, MPH, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, February 10, 2023

Investigating and Expanding the Structures and Functions of Secretory Antibodies

Beth Stadtmueller, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
School of Molecular & Cellular Biology
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Hosted by: Andrew Flyak, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, February 17, 2023

Tissue-specific Transcriptional Regulation of T Cell Immunity

Amanda Poholek, PhD
Director of the Health Sciences Sequencing Core at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh
Assistant Professor
Department of Pediatrics
Department of Immunology
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Hosted by: Mandy McGeachy, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, February 24, 2023

Understanding Birnaviridae Replication, Pathogenicity, and Antigenicity

Andrew Broadbent, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Animal & Avian Sciences
College of Agriculture & Natural Resources
University of Maryland

Hosted by: Colin Parrish, PhD
Baker Institute for Animal Health
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 3, 2023

Receptor Usage by Hantaviruses

Rohit Jangra, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
Louisiana State University Health at Shreveport

Hosted by: John Parker, BVMS, PhD
Baker Institute for Animal Health
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 10, 2023

Rotavirus Host Restriction Through the Lens of the Reverse Genetics System

Siyuan Ding, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Molecular Microbiology
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

Hosted by: Sarah Caddy, MA, VetMB, PhD, DACVM, MRCVS
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 17, 2023

Unraveling The Secrets of the Stem Cell Secretome

Gerlinde Van de Walle, PhD
Associate Professor
Baker Institute for Animal Health
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Hosted by: Deborah Fowell, DPhil (PhD)
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 31, 2023

Looking Under the Hood: The Metabolic Transmission of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis

Kyu Rhee, PhD
Professor of Medicine
Weill Cornell Medical College

Hosted by: Brian VanderVen, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, April 14, 2023

Mechanisms Regulating the Immune-Vascular Interplay During Neuroinflammation

*LOCATION CHANGE: Lecture Hall 2 (S1-165)*

Jorge Alvarez, BSc, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Pathobiology
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of Pennsylvania

Hosted by: Mandy McGeachy, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, April 21, 2023

Microbes, Metabolites, and Mucosal Immunity

Kathy McCoy, PhD
Professor
Department of Physiology & Pharmacology
University of Calgary
Killam Memorial Chair
Scientific Director | International Microbiome Centre

Hosted by: Brian Rudd, MPH, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, April 28, 2023

NK Cells in Host Immunity

Joseph Sun, PhD
Professor of Immunology and Director
Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program
Weill Cornell Medical College

Hosted by: M&I Graduate Students
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, May 5, 2023

Does A Dangerous Cousin Make You Dangerous? Assessing the Pathogenic Potential of Newly Discovered Filoviruses

Elke Muhlberger, PhD
Director of Integrated Science Services
National Emerging Infectious Dieseases Laboratories (NEIDL)
Professor of Microbiology
Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
Boston University

Hosted by: M&I Graduate Students
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, May 12, 2023

Convergent Evolution of Human Hepatitis C Virus bNAb Lineages with Diverse VH Genes

Justin Bailey, MD, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Medicine
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Attending Physician
Johns Hopkins Hospital

Hosted by: Andrew Flyak, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

*This seminar is not part of the VETMI 7120 course.*

Friday, May 26, 2023

CD8+ T Cell Immunity: New Tools To Answer Old Questions

Brian Rudd, MPH, PhD
Associate Professor of Immunology
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Hosted by: Deborah Fowell, DPhil (PhD)
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

*This seminar is not part of the VETMI 7120 course.*

FALL 2022

Friday, September 16, 2022 -- VIRTUAL

Fantastic IgA Plasma Cells and Where to Find Them

Jennifer Gommerman, PhD
Professor & Canada Research Chair in Tissue-specific Immunity
Department of Immunology
Temerty Faculty of Medicine
University of Toronto

Hosted by: Cindy Leifer, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

*Please contact Taylor Trask (tt488@cornell.edu) for the Zoom information.

Friday, September 23, 2022

Ambiguous Anti-Viral Antibodies

Sarah Caddy, MA, VetMB, PhD, DACVM, MRCVS
Assistant Professor
Baker Institute for Animal Health
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Hosted by: Deborah Fowell, DPhil (PhD)
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, October 14, 2022

Edosomal Entry of Herpes Simplex Virus

Anthony Nicola, PhD
Professor of Virology
Department of Veterinary Microbiology & Pathology
College of Veterinary Medicine
Washington State University

Hosted by: Hector Aguilar-Carreno, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, October 21, 2022

Control of Salmonella Virulence by Chemical Signals of the Intestine

Craig Altier, PhD
Professor
Department of Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Hosted by: Brian VanderVen, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, October 28, 2022

Extracellular DNA in Immunity and Autoimmunity

Boris Reizis, PhD
Professor
Department of Pathology
Samuel A. Brown Professor
Department of Medicine
NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Hosted by: Colleen Lau, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, November 4, 2022

To the Tune of c-di-GMP: Biofilm-mediated Flea Borne Transmission of the Bubonic Plague

Viveka Vadyvaloo, PhD
Associate Director & Associate Professor
Paul Allen School for Animal Health
College of Veterinary Medicine
Washington State University

Hosted by: Hector Aguilar-Carreno, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, November 18, 2022

Integrated Approaches to Gastrointestinal Nematode Control

Raffi Aroian, PhD
Professor
Program in Molecular Medicine
University of Massachusetts Medical School

Hosted by: Dwight Bowman, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, December 2, 2022 -- VIRTUAL 

Clonal Dynamics of the Recall Antibody Response

Gabriel Victora, PhD
Laurie and Peter Grauer Associate Professor & Head
Laboratory of Lymphocyte Dynamics
The Rockefeller University

Hosted by: Deborah Fowell, DPhil (PhD)
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

*Please contact Taylor Trask (tt488@cornell.edu) for the Zoom information.

Friday, December 9, 2022

SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Evolution of Immune Escape

Jonathan Abraham, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Microbiology
Blavatnik Institute
Harvard Medical School

Hosted by: Hector Aguilar-Carreno, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

*This seminar is not part of the VETMI 7120 course.*

SPRING 2022

Friday, January 28, 2022

Leveraging early life immunity to end pandemics

Sallie Permar, MD, PhD
Nancy C. Paduano Professor and Chair
Weill Cornell Medicine
Pediatrician-in-Chief
New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center

Hosted by: Gary Whittaker, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, February 4, 2022

The Battle of Leuven against SARS-CoV2 and Dengue

Johan Neyts, PhD
Professor of Virology
School of Medicine & Dentistry
University of Leuven Belgium

Hosted by: Luis Schang, MV, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, February 11, 2022

Regulation of Herpesvirus Transcription during Productive and Latent infection

Joel D. Baines, VMD, PhD
James Law Professor of Virology
Emeritus
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Hosted by: Brian VanderVen
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, February 18, 2022

SARS-CoV-2 virus –host interactions

Adolf Garcia-Sastre, PhD
Director Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute
Professor, Microbiology
Professor, Medicine, Infectious Diseases
Professor, Pathology, Molecular and Cell Based Medicine
Icahan School of Medicine

Hosted by: Hector Aguilar-Carreno, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, February 25, 2022

The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) drives refractory responses of breast carcinomas to immune checkpoint blockade therapies

Anushka Dongre, PhD
Assistant Professor of Immunology
Department of Biomedical Sciences
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Hosted by: Deborah Fowell, D. Phil.
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 4, 2022

The class II fusion machinery: specific chaperones for folding and fusion activation

Félix Rey, PhD
Professor
Head of Structure
Department of Virology
Institut Pasteur
 

Hosted by: Theodore Clark, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 11, 2022

Discovering Reactive and Dominant Immune Archetypes in Cancer

Max Krummel, PhD
Professor
Department of Pathology
University of California San Francisco

Hosted by: Deborah Fowell, D. Phil.
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 18, 2022

Myeloid cell control of tumor specific immunity

Miriam Merad, MD, PhD
Director of the Precision Immunology Institute
Director of the Mount Sinai Human Immune Monitoring Center
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
 

Hosted by: Deborah Fowell, D. Phil.
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 25, 2022

Chromatin Loops and Transcriptional Control of HSV-1 in Neurons

Donna Neumann, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences
McPherson Eye Research Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Hosted by: Luis Schang, MV, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

POSTPONED from Friday, April 15, 2022

Edward Pearce, PhD
Bloomberg Distinguished Professor
Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center School of Medicine
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
Bloomberg School of Public Health
John Hopkins University

Hosted by: Theodore Clark, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, April 22, 2022

Immunity and social behavior through the prism of functional mycobiota exploration

Iliyan D. Iliev, PhD
Associate Professor of Immunology in Medicine
Co-director Microbiome Core Lab
Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease 
Joan and Sanford I. Weill Department of Medicine
Weill Cornell Medicine

Hosted by: Cynthia Leifer, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

POSTPONED from Friday, April 29, 2022

Turning (to) the soil for parasite cures: Bt vs. Intestinal Nematodes

Raffi V. Aroian, PhD
Professor
Program in Molecular Medicine
University of Massachusetts Medical School

Hosted by: Dwight Bowman, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

FALL 2021

Friday, September 10, 2021

Tracking of Novel SARS-CoV-2 Lineages Through Wastewater Surveillance

Marc Johnson, PhD
Professor
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Medicine

Hosted by: Volker M. Vogt, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, September 17, 2021

CD8 T cell Responses to Infection

Sara Hamilton Hart, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology
University of Minnesota

Hosted by: Cybelle Tabilas & Kaley Wilburn
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, September 24, 2021 

The National Cancer Institute: Leading Cancer Research in 2021 and Beyond

Norman E. Sharpless, MD
Director
National Cancer Institute

Hosted by: Robert Weiss
Department of Biomedical Sciences

Friday, October 1, 2021-virtual

RNA-mediated control of the type I interferon response

Sara Macias, PhD
Sir Henry Dale Fellow and Chancellor's Fellow
Institute of Immunology and Infection Research
The University of Edinburgh

Hosted by: John Parker
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, October 15, 2021

Deciphering the chemical crosstalk of host-gut microbiome interactions

Pamela Chang, PhD
Assistant Professor of Immunology
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Hosted by: Deborah Fowell, D. Phil.
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, October 22, 2021-virtual

How do immune responses differ in inflamed human tissues and tumors?

Martin Prlic, PhD
Associate Member
Vaccine & Infection Disease Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Affiliate Associate Professor
Department of Immunology, University of Washington

Hosted by: Brian Rudd
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, October 29, 2021-virtual

Putting the spotlight on the molecular choreography of viral RNAs

Alex Borodavka, PhD
Sir Henry Dale Research Fellow
Department of Biochemistry
University of Cambridge

Hosted by: John Parker
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, November 12, 2021

The immune system in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: one cell at a time


Andrew Grimson, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Molecular Biology & Genetic
College of Arts & Sciences
Cornell University

Hosted by: Brian VanderVen
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, November 19, 2021

Emerging deadly viruses and their glycoproteins-From viral entry to vaccines and antivirals

Hector Aguilar-Carreno, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Hosted by: Deborah Fowell, D. Phil.
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, December 3, 2021

Investigating CD8 T cell responses against cancer and self in engineered animal models

Nikhil Joshi, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Immunology
Yale School of Medicine

Hosted by: Cybelle Tabilas & Kaley Wilburn
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

SPRING 2021

 

Friday, February 12, 2021

Measles Virus: Endgame (?)

Benhur Lee, MD
Professor
Ward-Coleman Chair of Microbiology
Department of Microbiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Hosted by: Hector Aguilar-Carreno
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, February 19, 2021

COVID-19: Using chemogenomics to discover antivirals

Sara Cherry, PhD
Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Penn Medicine

Hosted by: John Parker
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, February 26, 2021

Understanding & developing low-immunogenic biomaterials

Shaoyi Jiang, PhD
Robert S. Langer ’70 Family & Friends Professor
Meining School of Biomedical Engineering
Cornell University

Hosted by: Avery August
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 5, 2021

Modulation of innate immunity by arboviruses: Feeling the STING

Ana Fernandez-Sesma, PhD
Professor of Microbiology
Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Hosted by: Hector Aguilar-Carreno
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 12, 2021

Gene regulatory mechanisms that assemble the T-cell identity

Ellen Rothenberg, PhD
Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering
Caltech

Hosted by: Brian Rudd
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 19, 2021

Engineering combination therapies for M. tuberculosis

Bree Aldridge, PhD
Associate Professor of Molecular Biology & Microbiology
Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
Tufts University

Hosted by: David Russell
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, March 26, 2021

Optimizing T cell activation in inflamed tissues

Deborah Fowell, PhD
Department Chair
Professor
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Friday, April 2, 2021

Chemical virology, a powerful approach to learn about viral entry, gene expression, replication, and pathogenesis

Luis M Schang, MV, PhD
Professor of Chemical Virology
Baker institute for Animal Health
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Friday, April 9, 2021

Epigenetics mechanisms of trained innate immunity

Musa Mhlanga, PhD
Professor
Division of Chemical & Systems Biology
University of Cape Town
Cape Town, South Africa

Hosted by: David Russell
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, April 16, 2021

Innate immune defense against intracellular bacterial pathogens

Sunny Shin, PhD
Associate Professor of Microbiology
Department of Microbiology
Perelman School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania

Hosted by: Brian VanderVen
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
email: bcv8

Friday, April 30, 2021

Regulation of Inflammatory Responses

Katherine A Fitzgerald, PhD
Professor
Department of Medicine
UMass

Hosted by: Gary Koretzky
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, May 7, 2021 - CO-SPONSORED with the FRIEDMAN CENTER SEMINAR SERIES

Translating immunology into new therapies for Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Fiona Powrie
Photo: Thomas S. G. Farnetti/Wellcome

Fiona Powrie, FRS, FMedSci
Professor of Musculoskeletal Science
Director of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, NDORMS
University of Oxford

Hosted by: Gary Koretzky
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, May 14, 2021

Memory B cells responding to infection

Marion Pepper, PhD
Associate Professor of Immunology
Department of Immunology
University of Washington

Hosted by: Deb Fowell
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

FALL 2020

 

Friday, September 4, 2020

Many pathways: a TNF family receptor that influences the microbiome, tissue function and mucosal immunity

Mitchell Kronenberg, PhD
President & Chief Scientific Officer
Division of Development Immunology
La Jolla Institute for Immunology

Hosted by: Gary Koretzky
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, September 11, 2020

Inside Out: regulation of macrophage innate immunity and inflammation

Cynthia Leifer, PhD
Associate Professor of Immunology
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

Hosted by: Ted Clark
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, September 18, 2020

Pathogenicity Islands from Tn7 Elements: Safe Sites, Mobile Plasmids, CRISP/Cas and Beyond

Joe Peters, PhD
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Department of Microbiology
Cornell University

Hosted by: Jeongmin Song
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, September 25, 2020

Integrating T cell signals: Lessons from primary immunodeficiencies

Pamela Schwartzberg, MD, PhD
Chief, Cell Signaling and Immunity Section
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Hosted by: Avery August
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, October 2, 2020

Crosstalk of innate immune receptors with the microbiota and adaptive immunity in autoimmunity and cancer

Jenny Ting, PhD
William Rand Kenan Professor
Department of Genetics
Director, Center for Translational Immunology
School of Medicine
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Hosted by: Gary Koretzky
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, October 16, 2020

Imaging and imagining bacterial flagella

Eric Sundberg, PhD
Professor and Chair
Department of Biochemistry
Emory University School of Medicine

Hosted by: Jeongmin Song
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, October 23, 2020

Control of viral infection by inhibitory natural killer cell receptors

Wayne Yokoyama, MD
Sam and Audrey Loew Levin Professor of Medicine
Pathology and Immunology and director of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP)
Washington University School of Medicine

Hosted by: Gary Koretzky
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, October 30, 2020

Long-term Immunity...the Key to Normalcy

Susan Kaech, PhD
Professor and Director
SALK
NOMIS Center for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis
NOMIS Chair

Hosted by: Cybelle Tabilas
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, November 6, 2020

Protective and pathogenic T cell responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection

Daniel Leo Barber, PhD
Chief
T-Lymphocyte Biology Section
NIAID/DIR

Hosted by: Brian VanderVen
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, November 13, 2020

Immunologic regulation of immunity, inflammation and cancer

Gregory F. Sonnenberg, PhD
Associate Professor of Microbiology & Immunology in Medicine
Weill Cornell Medicine
Jill Roberts Institute for Research in IBD
Department of Medicine, Gastroenterology Division 
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
Cornell University

Hosted by: Brian Rudd
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, November 20, 2020

Polyparasitism in school-aged children living in schistosomiasis endemic focus of Muyuka-Cameroon: a cross sectional study on infection outcomes and determinants

Irene Ule Ngole Sumbele, PhD
Associate Professor
Medical Parasitology
University of Buea

Hosted by: Gary Whittaker
Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Friday, December 4, 2020

T cell differentiation and dysfunction in tumors

Andrea Schietinger, PhD
Assistant Member
Immunology Program
Sloan Kettering Institute

Hosted by: Brian Rudd
Department of Microbiology & Immunology