A “Win-Win” for Science Population Council senior scientist Melissa Pope conducts research on the immune system’s dendritic cells at the Council’s Center for Biomedical Research in New York. An award-winning immunologist, Pope is working to define the role of these cells in HIV infection and has contributed to one of the major accepted theories for the mechanism of sexual transmission of HIV.  | Photo credit: Karen Tweedy-Holmes |
Six research fellows chosen on the basis
of their academic accomplishments and experience are working with Pope on microbicide and HIV vaccine research. The fellows mention “great supervision” and a “wonderful environment to do science” when asked about their experiences. Pope says, “These fellowships are a ‘win-win’ for everyone: I get talented, enthusiastic collaborators, and the fellows get first-rate
training they take with them to labs around the world.” Pictured above, from left to right, are: Australian Ph.D. Stuart Turville, who investigates the biology of dendritic cell–driven HIV infection and tests compounds to block infection in vitro and in vivo; Gavin Morrow, an Australian with a Ph.D. from Sydney University, who studies mucosal innate and adaptive immune responses during immunodeficiency virus infection; Melissa Pope; Laurence Vachot, a French Ph.D. who is investigating how the co-pathogen Candida albicans interacts with dendritic cells in HIV infection; German Susanna Trapp, a Ph.D. from the University of Erlangen, who works on HIV modulation of dendritic cell functions and how this contributes to HIV transmission and tissue damage; Italian Ph.D. candidate Silvia Peretti, on exchange from the Superior Institute of Health in Rome, whose work examines the effects of a herpes simplex virus on the biology of dendritic cells and the role of dendritic cells in mucosal transmission; and Panagiotis Vagenas, a Greek with a Ph.D. in immunology from Imperial College London, who conducts vaccine studies aiming to improve mucosal vaccine efficacy by targeting activated dendritic cells. The Pope lab fellows are currently funded by individual grants from the National Institutes of Health, with additional support to Turville from USAID and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. (Return to issue contents)
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