Georgia Tomaras
Director of Research
Immunology
Duke Human Vaccine Institute
United States of America
Biography
As Director of Research, Dr. Tomaras is responsible for facilitating cutting-edge, collaborative and interdisciplinary research consistent with the goals and mission of the Institute. She serves as the primary liaison between the research staff and the administration and contributes to both short-term and long-term strategic planning. In 2015, Dr. Tomaras together, with Dr. Thielman, Division of Infectious Diseases, wrote and were awarded a 2.1 million dollar T32 training grant from the National Institutes of Health for postdoctoral research training. The overall goal of the T32 "Interdisciplinary Research Training Program in AIDS (IRTPA)" is to equip the next generation of scientists, with an emphasis on training underrepresented minorities, to expertly work across multiple disciplines including vaccine immunology, clinical research, engineering, biostatistics/bioinformatics and global health. The training program is supported by a large funding base of ~ $ 60.8 M in HIV/AIDS research funding, to faculty at Duke University and is committed to providing a transformative environment for training future scientists to be innovative leaders who identify cross-cutting solutions to improve human health worldwide.
Research Interest
Restricted isotype, distinct variable gene usage, and high rate of gp120 specificity of HIV-1 envelope-specific B cells in colostrum compared with those in blood of HIV-1-infected, lactating African women. (03/2015)