Genoveffa Franchini
Senior Investigator
Center for Cancer Research
National Cancer Institute
United States of America
Biography
Dr. Genoveffa Franchini is a hematologist and renowned retrovirologist who has pioneered research on oncogenes and human retroviruses (HTLVs and HIVs). She has made numerous achievements in virology and translational approaches to prevent human diseases caused by retroviruses. Her work has furthered the understanding of HIV and HTLV-1 pathogenesis, leading to the identification and characterization of new viral genes for HIV and HTLV-1 and their functions. Her accomplishments in HIV vaccine development include the pre-clinical that led to the first vaccine trial in 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, that has demonstrated significant, though limited, protection against HIV acquisition. Her basic work in immunological mechanisms of protection furthered the understanding of the efficacy of the currently available smallpox vaccine in primates. She also has pioneered strategies to down-modulate regulators of immune response in HIV-1-infected individuals, using the macaque model of SIV infection.
Research Interest
Molecular retrovirology, Vaccinology, Immunology, Retroviral pathogenesis
Publications
-
Vargas-Inchaustegui DA, Tuero I, Mohanram V, Musich T, Pegu P, Valentin A, Sui Y, Rosati M, Bear J, Venzon DJ, Kulkarni V. Humoral immunity induced by mucosal and/or systemic SIV-specific vaccine platforms suggests novel combinatorial approaches for enhancing responses. Clinical immunology. 2014 Aug 31;153(2):308-22.
-
Moniuszko M, Liyanage NP, Doster MN, Parks RW, Grubczak K, Lipinska D, McKinnon K, Brown C, Hirsch V, Vaccari M, Gordon S. Glucocorticoid treatment at moderate doses of SIVmac251-infected rhesus macaques decreases the frequency of circulating CD14+ CD16++ monocytes but does not alter the tissue virus reservoir. AIDS research and human retroviruses. 2015 Jan 1;31(1):115-26.
-
Gupta S, Pegu P, Venzon DJ, Gach JS, Ma ZM, Landucci G, Miller CJ, Franchini G, Forthal DN. Enhanced in vitro transcytosis of simian immunodeficiency virus mediated by vaccine-induced antibody predicts transmitted/founder strain number after rectal challenge. The Journal of infectious diseases. 2014 May 21;211(1):45-52.
