DYVS seminar Wednesday 17 April 16:00h
It’s almost time for a new DYVS seminar Wednesday 17 April at 16:00! We would like to introduce you to the two speakers and their research:
Eleanor Marshall (Erasmus MC) will be talking about Usutu virus vs West Nile virus: insights into neurovirulence and neuroinvasion. “My project focuses on unravelling key differences between viruses and the host response they induce that may determine the risk for development of neuroinvasive disease in humans. To study this I use a wide variety of experimental models of neuroinvasion and neurovirulence to directly compare Usutu virus and West Nile virus, two mosquito-borne arboviruses that have a very different clinical picture, despite their close phylogenetic relation and co-circulation. I’m now in my final year and am busy sending out papers and writing up my thesis. It’s brilliant to see all of my work come together and see how it fits into the wider picture, but I do miss playing around with experiments and being a titration machine in the lab!”
Jean Felipe Valdés-López (UMC Groningen) will be talking about Interleukin 27 as an inducer of antiviral response to chikungunya virus infection in human macrophages. “I am a biologist who graduated from the University of Antioquia (Medellin, Colombia) and a Ph.D candidate in basic biomedical sciences with an emphasis in virology at the University of Antioquia, and the University of Groningen (Groningen, the Netherlands). I love the research in virology, immunology, cell signaling, and molecular cell biology. I have a special interest in investigating the mechanism of immunopathogenesis and control of viral infection, especially in the context of arbovirus infection (mainly Chikungunya, zika, mayaro, and dengue viruses). My favorite technique in the lab is the transcriptomic analysis of mRNAs by bulk RNA-seq and quantification of viral replication by plaque assay. In my research project, I identified that human monocytes, macrophages, and interleukin 27 are key components of innate immune antiviral response involved in the control of chikungunya virus infection, but also in the induction of persistent inflammatory responses associated with immunopathogenesis of chronic CHIKV-dependent arthritis.”
If you are interested in presenting your work in one of the seminars this year, please send your abstract to dyvs@knvm.org.
We hope to see you this Wednesday! You will receive the link Wednesday in your mailbox.