Ross leaving UGA

The University of Georgia is losing a prominent researcher: Dr. Ted Ross, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminence Scholar and the head of infectious disease research at UGA, has told his staff he will leave next spring, taking a post with a vaccine research center in Port St Lucie Florida.

Ted Ross biography, from the University of Ga website...

Ted M. Ross, Ph.D. is the Director of the Center for Vaccines and Immunology and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Georgia. Dr. Ross earned his undergraduate and graduate studies in Zoology and Microbiology at the University of Arkansas and he received a Doctorate in Microbiology and Immunology from Vanderbilt University in 1996. He was awarded the inaugural Sidney P. Colowick Award in Outstanding Graduate Research while at Vanderbilt.  Dr. Ross performed post-doctoral fellowships at Duke University on HIV biology of viral entry and at Emory University on vaccine development for HIV and influenza viruses. He then started his own laboratory as Principal Investigator at East Carolina University and in 2003 moved the laboratory to the University of Pittsburgh in the Departments of Medicine-Infectious Diseases, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and as a founding member of the Center for Vaccine Research where he served the University for 10 years.  In 2015, he joined the faculty at the University of Georgia.  Dr. Ross explores new vaccine technologies intended to protect against all strains of influenza – an endeavor that could potentially eliminate the need for seasonal flu shots. Dr. Ross and his colleagues are applying similar strategies to fight other serious viruses such as, Dengue, Zika, Ebola, Chikungunya, and HIV Type-1 viruses.

Dr. Ross has published more than 130 papers and book chapters on infectious disease and vaccine development. He has been an invited speaker at more than 130 national and international conferences and participates in several vaccine working groups, including at the U.S. NIH, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. He is an editorial 100 board member of Vaccine. He previously served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Current HIV Research. In addition, he has been an ad-hoc reviewer on NIH study sections and a reviewer for 24 different journals.

Dr. Ross served as the Treasurer and Secretary of International Society for Vaccines from 2012-2017 and now is the current President-Elect (elected 2018) and has served as the Co-Chair of the 8th and 9th Vaccine and ISV Congress in Philadelphia (8th) and Seoul (9th).  In addition, Dr. Ross will be the lead Chair of the 12th ISV Congress in 2018 to be held in Atlanta, USA.

Research Interests

• Development of Broadly Reactive Vaccines using computationally optimized broadly reactive antigen (COBRA) modeling. Influenza, HIV, Dengue.
• Modeling Immunity to Biodefense agents and influenza.
• Influenza VLP-based vaccines for seasonal and pandemic influenza.
• Pathogenicity/Genomic Modeling of influenza infection in adult and elderly ferrets, and humans.
• Evaluation of human clinical samples following influenza vaccination.
• Development of tetravalent Dengue VLP-based vaccines.
• Development of VLPs for RVFV and CCHFV.
• Multiclade Consensus Env VLP AIDS vaccine.
• Using Consensus Env Sequences to broaden immunity.
• Using C3d adjuvants in a DNA vaccine to enhance the immunogenicity to HIV/SIV, RVFV, Dengue, West Nile, Chikungunya virus envelopes.
• Development and testing pandemic H5N1, H1N1, H7N9 subtypes.

Educational Background

• PhD (1996) Microbiology & Immunology, Vanderbilt University
• MS (1989) Microbiology, University of Arkansas
• BS (1986) Zoology, University of Arkansas

Selected Publications

Search PubMed for Ross TM

• Sautto GA, Kirchenbaum GA, Ross TM. Towards a universal influenza vaccine: different approaches for one goal. 2017. Virology J. Accepted.
• Moehling KK, Nowalk MP, Lin CJ, Bertolet M, Ross TM, Carter CE, Susick M, Saul SG, Kaynar AM, Bromberger JT, Zimmerman RK. The Effect of frailty on HAI response to influenza vaccine among community-dwelling adults >50 years of age. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2017 Nov 27:1-7. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2017.1405883. [Epub ahead of print].
• Kirchenbaum GA, Allen JD, Layman TS, Sautto GA, Ross TM. Infection of ferrets with influenza virus elicits a light chain biased antibody response against hemagglutinin. 2017. J. Immunol. 199(11):3798-3807.
• Nuñez IA, Carlock MA, Allen JD, Owino SO, Moehling K, Nowalk MP, Diagle K, Sweeney K, Mundle S, Vogel TU, Delagrave S, Ramagopol M, Zimmerman RK, Kleanthous H, Ross TM. Impact of age and pre-existing influenza immunity in humans on the elicitation of anti-hemagglutinin antibodies receiving split inactivated influenza vaccines. 2017. PLoS One. 12(11). In press.
• Carter DM, Darby CA, Johnson SK, Carlock MA, Kirchenbaum GA, Allen, JD, Vogel TU, Delagrave S, DiNapoli J, Alefantis, T, Kleanthous H, Ross TM. Elicitation of protective antibodies against a broad panel of H1N1 viruses in ferrets pre-immune to historical H1N1 influenza viruses. 2017. J Virol. 91(24). In press.
• Wong TM, Bebin-Blackwell A-G., Allen JD, Park B, Carter DM, Kleanthous H, Alefantis, T, Ross TM. H3 COBRA hemagglutinin vaccines elicit antibodies with hemagglutinin-inhibition (HAI) activity against a diverse panel of H3N2 influenza viruses. 2017. J Virol. 91:24. In press.
• Keef E, Zhang LA, Swigon D, Urbano A, Ermentrout GB, Matusewski M, Toapanta FR, Ross TM, Parker R, Clermont G. Discrete dynamical modeling of influenza infection suggests age-dependent differences in immunity. 2017. J Virol. 91(23).
• Allen JD, Owino SO, Carter DM, Crevar CJ, Evers T, Fox CB, Coler RN, Reed SG, Baldwin SL, Ross, TM. Broadened immunity and protective responses with an emulsion-adjuvanted H5 COBRA VLP vaccine. 2017. Vaccine. 35(38):5209-5216
• Platt JL, Silva I, Balin SJ, Lefferts AR, Farkash E, Ross TM, Carroll MC, Cascalho M. C3d regulates immune checkpoint blockade and enhances antitumor immunity. JCI Insight. 2017. 2(9). pii: 90201. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.90201. [Epub ahead of print].
• Kirchenbaum GA, Ross TM. Generation of Monoclonal Antibodies against Immunoglobulin Proteins of the Domestic Ferret (Mustela purtorius furo). J Immunol Res. 2017. 5874572. doi: 10.1155/2017/5874572. Epub 2017 Feb 14.
• Lee J, Boutz DR, Chromikova V, Joyce MG, Vollmers C, Leung K, Horton AP, DeKosky BJ, Lee CH, Lavinder JJ, Murrin EM, Chrysostomou C, Hoi KH, Tsybovsky Y, Thomas PV, Druz A, Zhang B, Zhang Y, Wang L, Kong WP, Park D, Popova LI, Dekker CL, Davis MM, Carter CE, Ross TM, Ellington AD, Wilson PC, Marcotte EM, Mascola JR, Ippolito GC, Krammer F, Quake SR, Kwong PD, Georgiou G. Molecular-level analysis of the serum antibody repertoire in young adults before and after seasonal influenza vaccination. Nat Med. 2016. 22(12):1456-1464.
• Tripp RA, Ross TM. Development of a Zika Vaccine. Expert Rev Vaccines. 2016. 15(9):1083-5.
• Wong TM Petrovsky N, Bissel SM, Wiley CM, and Ross TM. Delta inulin-derived adjuvants that elicit Th1 phenotype following vaccination reduces viral lung titers without a reduction in lung immunopathology. 2016. Hum Vacc Immunother. 12:8. 1-10.
• Carter DM, Darby CA, Lefoley BC, Crevar CJ, Alefantis T, Oomen R, Anderson SF, Strugnell T, Cortés-Garcia G, Vogel TU, Parrington M, Kleanthous H, Ross TM. Design and Characterization of a Computationally Optimized Broadly Reactive Hemagglutinin vaccine for H1N1 influenza viruses. COBRA HA vaccine. 2016. J Virol. 90(9):4720-4723.
• Arévalo MA*, Wong TM*, Ross TM. Expression and Purification of Virus-Like Particles for Vaccination. 2016. J Vis Exp. (112). doi: 10.3791/54041.
• Kirchenbaum GA, Carter DM, Ross TM. Sequential Infection in Ferrets with Seasonal H1N1 Influenza Boost Hemagglutinin Stalk Specific Antibodies. 2016. J. Virol. 90:1116-1128.

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