Leadership

Annie De Groot, M.D., Co-Director

Dr. De Groot was educated at Smith College (BA, 1978), Pritzker School of Medicine and the University of Chicago (MD, 1983). She trained in Internal Medicine (New England Medical Center (Tufts) 1986) and received additional training in immunoinformatics and vaccinology with Russell Howard and Jay Berzofsky (NIH, LPD and NCI 1986-89), followed by clinical training in infectious disease at New England Medical Center (Tufts) (1989-92). She received Board certification in Internal Medicine (1986) and Infectious Disease (1992).

Having received her first R01 as an ID fellow, she was invited by Ken Mayer and Charles CJ Carpenter of Brown University to move from Tufts NEMC to the newly built Brown University BioMedical Center on campus, and in 1992, she opened the TB/HIV Research Laboratory. She initially worked on TB and HIV epitope discovery, and eventually licensed the EpiMatrix vaccine design technology developed in her TB/HIV Research Lab at Brown and established EpiVax in 1998. Between 2006 and 2008 she successfully devoted her attention to bringing EpiVax to the forefront of the applied immunoinformatics field. In order to continue to teach and pursue non-commercial research, she founded the Institute for Immunology and Informatics at University of Rhode Island and was appointed director in 2008.

Dr. De Groot is considered a thought leader in the field of epitope-driven vaccine design and “immunogenicity” of protein therapeutics. Her work has been recognized by a number of national and international organizations. She has been the recipient of a NFID-Eli Lilly Award, two RI Foundation awards and a Commercial Innovation Award (Slater Biomedical Foundation), was given a “Genius Award” in Science and Technology by Esquire Magazine (2003) and honored by the RI Tech Collective (2006) for work on the GAIA HIV vaccine. More recently, she was awarded “RI Woman Physician of the Year” in 2006 and in 2007, she received the Alvan Fisher Award for Medical Advocacy from AIDS Project Rhode Island and the “Woman of Achievement Award, 2008” from the YWCA for her work relating to access to care in Providence and West Africa and an award for “Career Achievement” from the Providence Business News in May 2009.

Denice Spero, Ph.D., Co-Director

Dr. Spero has an extensive background in pharmaceutical Research and Development at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Most recently, as Vice President of drug discovery support, she was responsible for establishing and leading the discovery organization’s science in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK), pharmaceutics, and general pharmacology for the therapeutic areas Immunology and Inflammation and Cardiovascular Diseases. In this capacity she and her team established over 30 assays to evaluate drug candidates for optimal safety and DMPK characteristics. She also led a team of scientists which successfully placed three drugs into clinical development for Multiple Sclerosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Dr. Spero was highly active in the Diversity and Inclusion initiatives at Boehringer Ingelheim and was a women’s leadership mentor and diversity spokesperson to R&D. She co-founded Developing World Cures, Inc. (DWC) and functioned as its President and member of the board through 2009. DWC was established to discover and develop new therapeutics for the treatment of neglected diseases with a focus on diarrheal diseases and dengue virus. Dr. Spero is now the co-Director of the Institute for Immunology and Informatics and holds a Research Professor position at the University of Rhode Island. The Institute for Immunology and Informatics (I’Cubed) was founded with a 13M dollar U-19 grant to accelerate vaccine discovery in the areas of infectious diseases and biodefense using state-of-the-art bioinformatics tools. She holds over 60 publications and patents and has given numerous invited lectures in the fields of synthetic chemistry, medicinal chemistry and drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. Dr. Spero was noted by the Rhode Island Business Quarterly as one of “Four Women to Watch” as a woman advancing the state’s knowledge economy. She was recently awarded, along with Dr. De Groot, a Providence-based grant to bring together scientists and entrepreneurs to teach them the principles of biotechnology company start-up.

Dr. Spero holds a B.A. in chemistry and biology, Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Wheaton College, an M.S. in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Brown University. She did post-doctoral research at Harvard University in the laboratory of Professor Y. Kishi working on the total synthesis of the anti-cancer drug Halichondrin B.

TRIAD Principal Investigators

Steve Gregory, Ph.D., Dendritic-cell Pulsed HCV Vaccine Research Project PI

Dr. Gregory’s current research efforts focus, in part, is on delineating the role of the liver (listeroiosis disease) and the lung (tularemia) in host resistance to systemic bacterial infections. Dr. Gregory and Dr. De Groot have had a longstanding collaboration on F. tularensis; they were able to demonstrate that a genome derived, epitope-driven vaccine could protect against live bacterial challenge. A manuscript describing their collaborative work over the past two years is in preparation.

The specific mechanisms that underlie the extraordinary capacity of the immune system to clear and kill these pathogens are under investigation. Dr. Gregory is conducting ongoing experiments to determine the mechanisms that underlie protection against replication of L. monocytogenes and F. tularensis in vitro and in vivo.

Thomas N. Mather, Ph.D., Tick Vaccine Research Project PI

Dr. Mather heads a NIH-funded discovery-based research program that is exposing the potential significance of tick salivary components that modulate host defenses, thereby leading to successful blood-feeding and pathogen transmission. Since they began studying the properties of tick saliva in 1994, Mather, along with collaborators at URI and NIH, have pioneered tick salivary transcriptomics, identifying and cataloguing a significant number of genes that can be explored for their potential use as part of an anti-tick vaccine. More recently, their work has focused on developing systems for accelerating progress from tick transcriptomes to their immunome.

Mather’s program is enhanced by a long-standing and dynamic collaboration with NIH scientists Jose Ribeiro and Jesus Valenzuela and their respective research teams. These groups routinely share research materials and experimental protocols, as well as training opportunities in advanced molecular biology, bioinformatics and post-proteomic discovery. At the core of the this team’s progress to date is access to large quantities of ticks, tick salivary glands, and tick saliva, including over 30 mLs of tick saliva collected over the past 14 years and used in a wide variety of experimental applications. Dr. Mather and Dr. De Groot have collaborated on a number of research proposals to promote the development of approaches to developing a tick-salivome based vaccine.

Lenny Moise, Ph.D., Technology Project Detolerized Anti-DEC-205 PI

Dr. Moise is a new investigator moving with Dr. De Groot from Brown to URI. He previously worked under Dr. Edward Hawrot in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology (MPPB). His doctoral thesis topic was NMR solution structure of the principal bungarotoxin binding site on the alpha7 neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor in complex with bungarotoxin. After he received his PhD from Brown University in May 2002, he was an NIH COBRE Postdoctoral Research Associate in Dr. Hawrot’s lab, studying the functional effects of bungarotoxin binding site transplantation into other proteins.

In June 2006, Dr. Moise joined the EpiVax team as Director of Vaccine Research. Since then, he has been working on development of vaccines against tularemia, smallpox, and H. pylori, and has led the effort in deimmunization of botulinum neurotoxin. Dr. Moise and Dr. De Groot have an extraordinarily productive collaboration in terms of programs in progress, grants submitted, and papers published.

Steven Moss, M.D., H.pylori Therapeutic Vaccine Project PI (in collaboration with Dr. Moise)

Dr. Steven Moss is a Professor of Medicine at Brown University, a clinical gastroenterologist at Rhode Island Hospital, and the Director of the Brown University Gastroenterology Fellowship Training program. He graduated from University College/Royal Free Hospital Medical School in London, U.K. and trained there in Medicine and Gastroenterology before moving to the US in 1993. After completing a second gastroenterology fellowship at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York he joined the faculty at Columbia University before moving to Rhode Island in 2000. Dr. Moss’ clinical and research interests are in the pathogenesis of H. pylori infection in peptic ulcer disease and gastric cancer. His laboratory is currently focused on dissecting the molecular and cellular pathways underlying gastric carcinogenesis related to H. pylori infection using cellular and animal models s well as human tissues.

Senior Scientific Staff

Alan Rothman, M.D., Principal Investigator

Alan L. Rothman, M.D., is Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS). He became involved in research on immunity and pathogenesis of viral diseases in humans during his fellowship in Infectious Diseases and has continued this research in collaboration with colleagues at UMMS and internationally in Thailand, Europe, and Latin America. Current studies involve both clinical and basic research studies on pathogenesis and immunity of emerging and re-emerging viral infections. A major focus of his research has been defining the virological and immunological events in acute dengue virus infection and their relationship to the development of the viral hemorrhagic fever syndrome.   

Lenny Moise, Ph.D., Principal Investigator

Lenny Moise, Ph.D., is a new investigator moving with Dr. De Groot from Brown to URI. He previously worked under Dr. Edward Hawrot in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology (MPPB). His doctoral thesis topic was NMR solution structure of the principal bungarotoxin binding site on the alpha7 neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor in complex with bungarotoxin. After he received his PhD from Brown University in May 2002, he was an NIH COBRE Postdoctoral Research Associate in Dr. Hawrot’s lab, studying the functional effects of bungarotoxin binding site transplantation into other proteins.

In June 2006, Dr. Moise joined the EpiVax team as Director of Vaccine Research. Since then, he has been working on development of vaccines against tularemia, smallpox, and H. pylori, and has led the effort in deimmunization of botulinum neurotoxin. Dr. Moise and Dr. De Groot have an extraordinarily productive collaboration in terms of programs in progress, grants submitted, and papers published.

Loren Fast, Ph.D., CMI Core Lab Director

Loren Fast obtained his Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of Minnesota. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in the Division of Basic Immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center he took a faculty position in the Division of Hematology/ Oncology at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University where he is currently Associate Professor of Medicine (Research). His research interests are in the field of cellular immunology and especially the role of cytolytic cells. He has studied the role of these cells in transplantation, transfusion, immunotherapy and autoimmune diseases using both murine and human model systems. More recently, he pioneered the use of xenogeneic graft-versus-host disease that is generated by the injection of human lymphocytes into immunodeficient mice as model for transfusion –associated graft-versus-host disease. As the director of Cellular Immunology Core, he will use his cellular immunology expertise to expand the menu of assays offered by the core and provide expertise in the design and development of immunological assays.

Eric Gustafson, Ph.D.

Eric Gustafson received his B.S. in Molecular Biology from Vanderbilt University and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry from Brown University, where he studied the regulation of germ cell specification during embryonic development. Eric studied several transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene regulatory aspects in this area utilizing a variety of cellular, molecular and biochemical techniques.

Eric is expanding and applying his research experience and training to human health and disease, particularly in immunotherapeutics and vaccine development at iCubed.

Scientific Staff

Joseph Desrosiers, CMI Core Lab Manager

Joseph Desrosiers is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island’s Biotechnology Program and has a B.S. in Biotechnolgy Manufacturing.  He is currently the Lab Manager for the Institute for Immunology and Informatics CMI Core Laboratory. His background is in T-Cell Immunology, with extensive knowledge in immunosorbent assays, flow cytometry and cryopreservation.  He also maintains the TRIAD groups transgenic mouse colonies.

Angela Reslow, Research Associate

Angela Reslow, M.S. CT – Mrs. Reslow is a Clinical Lab Scientist with over five years of experience in laboratory research.  She holds a B.S. Degree in Microbiology and a Master’s degree in Clinical Laboratory Science from the University of Rhode Island. She has extensive experience in a wide range of microbiological and molecular biological techniques, including bacterial transformation, site directed mutagenesis, PCR, mammalian cell transfection and protein/antibody production and purification.  She also possesses an in depth knowledge of immunology, vaccine design and bioinformatics.  She has experience in animal (small rodent) handling and husbandry, mammalian cell culture and a wide range of functional T-Cell assays such as enzyme linked immunosorbent assays, ELISA and Flow Cytometry.

Mrs. Reslow is part of the joint grant writing and development team here at iCubed.  She also has played a role in the logistical support , development of content  and lab instruction for training programs and conferences held within the Institute.

Administration

Leslie Thresher, Associate Director

Patrick Lowney, Coordinator

Patrick Lowney received his B.A. in Journalism from the University of Rhode Island. Before joining the iCubed team, Patrick spent several years in television news as a producer and writer with CNN affiliate News 12 New Jersey, NBC Boston affiliate 7News and ABC affiliate New England Cable News. He is responsible for organizing and managing the Center’s many educational programs including workshops and conferences. Patrick also manages the content on the Institute’s website.

Students

Danielle N. Poole, Research Assistant

Danielle received her B.A. in International Development and Fine Art Photography from Seattle University in 2008.  Currently, she is a graduate student in the Master of Public Health program at Brown University, concentrating in global health.  At the Institute for Immunology and Informatics, Danielle works on the Multipathogen Burkholderia study, testing select epitopes from B. psuedomallei and B. mallei to assess immunogenicity.

Danielle Aguirre, Graduate Student

Danielle received her bachelor’s degree in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University while successfully defending her senior thesis in analytical chemistry on The Study of Atmospheric Deposition of Air Toxics to the Water’s of Puget Sound. Currently, she is enrolled in the University of Rhode Island while pursuing her master’s degree in Cell & Molecular Biology Program specializing in genetics/biochemistry. Danielle is also a research assistant at The Institute for Immunology and Informatics.

Marcus Arnold, Undergraduate Student

Marcus received his B.S. in Business Administration from Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky.  He is currently a senior at The University of Rhode Island pursuing a degree in Clinical Laboratory Science with a Biotechnology Manufacturing option.  Marcus works under the Administration Core where he assists in the daily functions of the Institute.