Andrew Flyak

Andrew Flyak hails from Ukraine where he earned an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev. Before his admission to the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in the Biomedical Sciences at Vanderbilt University, Andrew worked in Sebastian Joyce's lab, where he studied the genes which are crucial for the development of Natural Killer T cells. Andrew's work resulted in co-authorship on a manuscript published in the Journal of Immunology. As part of his thesis project, Andrew is trying to understand the molecular mechanisms of filovirus neutralization by antibodies. Andrew will isolate and characterize a panel of human neutralizing antibodies against filoviruses using peripheral blood B cells from individuals who survived infection several years earlier.