Tanya Miura, Ph.D.

Summary: Antibody-based therapeutics are being developed for many important viral infections, yet the ability of viruses to mutate and avoid being inhibited by antibodies limits their therapeutic effectiveness. My lab is studying how respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) mutates to become resistant to neutralization by therapeutic antibodies. Antibodies that neutralize RSV target the fusion glycoprotein, which is needed for the virus to enter host cells. We are studying how different amino acid substitutions in the fusion glycoprotein affect its functions, viral growth, and neutralization by antibodies.

Minimum Classes: Cell and molecular biology. Any labs requiring sterile technique

Projects: Screening a set of fusion glycoprotein variants for changes in protein expression, cell fusion, antibody binding, and antibody neutralization. This project would involve molecular biology techniques, cell culture, and assays like western blotting, flow cytometry, and fluorescence microscopy.

Quantifying the growth of a set of RSV variants in cell culture. This project would involve infecting cells with viruses, collecting samples over time, and titrating the samples in cells and observing viral growth by fluorescence microscopy.