Save the date: Retrovirology Dinner Club Meeting, two 30 minute talks by Martin Feuerherd, PhD (MGH/HMS) and Karthika Nagalekshmi (UMass Chan Medical School)

Martin Feuerherd, PhD, Research Fellow, MGH/HMS
Martin received his PhD in Experimental Medicine with Dr. Ulrike Protzer at the Technical University of Munich working on alterations of HBV-specific T-cell responses in people from Tanzania living with HBV/HIV co-infection. Thereafter he was involved in a variety of collaborative COVID-19 projects with clinicians and industrial partners regarding aerosol-dependent virus spread, antiviral drugs, and key molecules in the innate and adaptive immune system after SARS-CoV-2 infection or COVID-19 vaccination. Returning to his passion for chronic viruses he joined the Lauer-Kim lab in April 2022 focusing on differences of virus-specific T cells in the peripheral blood versus the liver as well as under immune perturbations by assessing the transcriptome, phenotype, and function of these immune cells.

• Talk Title: “ART-Induced and Naturally-Achieved Immune Control & Functional Cure in Hepatitis B and HIV Co-Infection”
• Mentors: Drs. Georg Lauer and Arthur Kim, Co-Directors of HU CFAR Hepatitis & HIV Scientific Working Group

Karthika Nagalekshmi, Postdoctoral fellow, UMass Chan Medical School
After completing her biomedical sciences masters at Madras University in Chennai, India, Karthika did her PhD from Queen’s University in Belfast, Ireland, where she worked on host-pathogen interactions studying the innate immune response of macrophages to nontuberculous mycobacteria. In her postdoc at UMass Chan Medical School, she works on a different host pathogen interaction, attempting to figure out how HIV-1 unspliced RNA activates dendritic cells.

• Talk Title: “Deciphering HIV-1 RNA features that activate dendritic cells in an IFIH1 dependent manner”
• Mentor: Jeremy Luban