Last summer, acts of racial violence prompted millions of people to take to the streets to protest the longstanding injustices entrenched in our society. The scientific community – including the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation (VI4) – began to publicly acknowledge and reckon with their complacency in the inequities and discrimination that have always existed. It is clear that the community needs to change, but that doesn’t occur without dedicated and intentional work.

Most of the vaccines that protect us from viruses do so by stimulating your body to produce antibodies. Antibodies are y-shaped proteins that circulate in the blood and recognize and fight off pathogens such as viruses. Immune cells called B cells recognize the pathogens and make a range of antibodies in response to an infection.... Click the infographic to learn more!

Coronavirus terminology can be confusing. You may see the terms SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, and coronavirus used interchangeably, but these words don't mean the same thing. Coronavirus refers to an entire family of viruses. They were named coronaviruses because, under a microscope, protrusions on the virus surface resemble a crown (or corona). Many coronaviruses cause mild, cold-like symptoms, and we may have been infected with them before unknowingly.... Click the infographic to learn more!

Viruses are remarkably simple for how much devastation they cause. SARS-CoV-2 is composed of a ball of protein and lipids (or fats) that contains genetic material (or RNA) inside. Different vaccine approaches either use parts of the virus (e.g., the genetic material or proteins) or the whole virus to generate an immune response to fight the infection.... Click the infographic to learn more!

The mRNA vaccine is a new type of vaccine that allows your body to trigger an immune response without using the actual germ to train your immune system. Instead, it trains your immune response using a piece of the virus and will later protect you from getting infected/sick if you encounter the actual virus. Since it is new, here is a list of the generalized ingredients for the mRNA vaccines currently available in the US.... Click the infographic to learn more!

Jonathan is a graduate student in the Lars Plate lab. He chose the Plate lab because of the interdisciplinary proteomics and chemical biology approaches they were using to study viruses and because of the outstanding training environment Lars and group members provided. His project combines chemical biology tools with quantitative mass spectrometry methods to map host-virus interactomics with temporal resolution during infection, with the aim of identifying potential host factors as therapeutic targets to combat viral pathogenesis... Click the image on the left to continue reading.

Wenhan Zhu received his Ph.D. at Purdue University in Biological Sciences and is an Assistant Professor in Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology. In his lab, they focus on the metabolic interactions that dictate the changes or resilience of the microbiota. Insight into such interactions could enable precise manipulation of gut microbiota composition, thus restoring a balanced community in situ and improving host health. To precisely manipulate the microbiota, they use a multidisciplinary discovery pipeline that consists of next-generation sequencing, bacterial genetics and a mechanistic understanding of bacterial physiology in vivo. This pipeline allows them to discover druggable targets of the microbiota and translate the findings using high-throughput screening.... Click Dr. Zhu's photo to continue reading.

Exhausted-like CD8 T cell phenotypes linked to C-peptide preservation in alefacept-treated T1D subjects. Diggins K, et al. in JCI Insight, December 22, 2020 Interactions between host genetics and gut microbiota determine susceptibility to CNS autoimmunity. Montgomery T, et al.

Melissa is a graduate student in the Program in Cancer Biology. She is part of the Kim Rathmell lab where she investigates the relationship between infiltrating immune cells and RCC tumor cells and the metabolic programs they employ to drive tumor progression and therapeutic resistance... Click the image on the left to continue reading.