Infectious Diseases and Human Health Seminar
Erica Ollmann Saphire, PhD
Erica Ollmann Saphire, PhD is the President, CEO and a Professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. In her executive role, she is leading faculty in collaborative strategy, uncovering sex-based differences in the immune system and innovating vaccines. In her academic lab, Saphire is a structural biologist, virologist and immunologist. She galvanized and led NIH- and BMGF-funded global consortia uniting 40-60 competing investigators to compare competing antibody therapeutics, and learn which features forecast protection, and mitigate viral escape. Her research has led to the first ever structure of the entire human IgG antibody, the supramolecular complex by which IgG activates the complement cascade for immune protection, pioneering structures of the surface glycoproteins of Lassa, Ebola, Marburg, Rabies and other viruses, and understanding how the viruses mediate entry and how human antibodies may defend against them. Her research has further revealed how viral matrix proteins hijack host lipids to polymerize conformational change and virus assembly and proved that certain viral proteins rearrange into different structures at different times for different functions. Saphire’s work has been recognized at the White House with a PECASE, with young investigator awards from ICAR, ASM, ASBMB, and the MRC Centre for Virus Research. She has been recognized with awards from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund; a Fulbright for research in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Germany; and a Mercator Fellowship from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. In 2021, she was named Scientist of the Year by the ARCS Foundation San Diego.
Details
Dates
May 1, 2023Time
11:00am-12:00pm PDTLocation
OnlineAudience
Gladstone and UCSFContact(s)
Infectious Diseases and Human Health Seminar is a collaborative series hosted by the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology, BioFulcrum, Quantitative Biosciences Institute, and the Host Pathogen Map Initiative at UC San Francisco.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
At Gladstone, we are committed to providing events and professional development activities that resonate with our community’s diverse members. Our goal is to develop creative programming that encompasses a wide variety of ideas and perspectives to inspire, educate, and engage with everyone within our walls.
We want to effect positive change through our events and activities by providing a platform for discussions on important topics related to increasing diversity and inclusiveness in the sciences.