Exploiting Adaptive Immunity to Detect and Disarm Emerging RNA Viruses

Rutgers Global Health Institute is hosting a guest faculty seminar at 11 a.m. on Monday, February 14, 2022, as part of its Viewpoints in Global Health Research: Guest Faculty Seminar Series. This online seminar will be presented by:

Bobby Brooke Herrera
E25Bio, Inc.
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Exploiting Adaptive Immunity to Detect and Disarm Emerging RNA Viruses
A growing body of evidence suggests that emerging RNA viruses can cause mild illness or asymptomatic infections. It is currently not known why some individuals develop life-threatening illness and others fail to develop significant symptoms. While several hypotheses could help explain this phenomenon, including properties of the infective virus or infected host, a robust immune response is a possible explanation. Preliminary findings have revealed antibody-positive individuals who never had symptoms but have cellular immune responses that are greater in magnitude when compared to survivors of severe disease. This seminar describes methodologies to identify emerging RNA viruses and evaluate the host’s immune response against them with implications for therapeutic development.

About the Presenter
Bobby Brooke Herrera is a co-founder and the chief science officer of E25Bio, Inc. at The Engine, founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a visiting scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research uses methods in systems immunology and molecular epidemiology to study how emerging viruses interact with their host, with the goal to design more effective diagnostics and therapeutics.

Online via Zoom

Free and open to the public. For more information, email info@globalhealth.rutgers.edu. For more events, visit the seminar series page on the Rutgers Global Health Institute website or explore the institute’s full online calendar.