Nadia Roan investigates the mechanisms by which pathogenic viruses can persist and cause disease in people. A major focus of her lab is to understand the mechanisms behind the persistence of the long-lived HIV reservoir, as well as how, in rare instances, certain individuals can naturally control HIV replication in the absence antiretroviral therapy (ART). The Roan Lab is also probing the features of T cells, HIV’s normal targets, that make these cells susceptible to various forms of HIV infection, ranging from “silent” latent infection to “active” productive infection.
Her lab also studies how SARS-CoV-2 infection can cause long COVID, and the impact of SARS-CoV-2 immunity on disease manifestation. Finally, her lab is actively studying the role of immune cells in female fertility and infertility. Roan’s work has implications for developing cures against HIV/AIDS, management and treatment of Long COVID, and women’s health.
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Roan’s lab has characterized the cells that harbor HIV in individuals whose infection is suppressed by antiretroviral therapy (ART), and the immune responses that can recognize these infected cells. The lab is now further characterizing the mechanisms by which HIV-infected cells can persist in the face of ART, using a variety of high-dimensional single-cell analysis approaches such as CyTOF, single-cell sequencing, and high-parameter imaging. Roan and her team are also developing approaches to directly target and eliminate these cells as a strategy to decrease the chronic inflammation and co-morbidities associated with HIV infection. These studies will pave the way for establishing strategies to achieve an ART-free, functional cure for HIV.
The Roan Lab is also interrogating other aspects of HIV infection, including understanding the mechanisms by which the virus transmits across mucosal barriers such as the female reproductive tract, and the molecular basis of latent versus productive HIV infection. In addition, Roan’s lab has successfully applied high-parameter phenotyping to deeply characterize the differentiation states, functional attributes, and homing properties of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells elicited by infection, vaccination, and hybrid immunity, as well as in the context of long COVID. Ongoing studies aim to leverage this knowledge to move toward the development of novel strategies to treat long COVID, a condition of growing burden and impact—particularly for women, which it disproportionately affects—but for which there are no widely available, evidence-based treatments.