James D Brien, PhD

James Brien is an Assistant Professor of Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics, whose laboratory studies the immune mechanisms that underlie durable B cell responses and antibody mediated protection against severe viral disease, and the control of viral variants. I am very excited to join the department with great scientists, post-doctoral fellows and students. We have several projects including using our mRNA vaccine platform to understand how vaccine immunogenicity relates to correlates of protection against severe viral infection; the role of type I interferon in modulation of antigen specific B cell responses to viral infection; and how viruses evolve away from different classes of antibody responses. We study a large panel of emerging pathogens that have a global impact including dengue, Zika, and West Nile viruses. Please tell your friends and colleagues my lab is looking for enthusiastic technicians and students. When not in the lab I can be found hiking, biking or playing soccer with the family.