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David J. Topham, Ph.D.

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Program for Advanced Immune Bioimaging

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David J. Topham, Ph.D.

About Me
Credentials
Research
Publications

About Me

David Topham joined the faculty at the University of Rochester Medical Center in 1999 and was appointed in 2009 as Vice Provost and Executive Director of the Health Science Center for Computational Innovation (HSCCI), a partnership between the University and IBM. As Executive Director of the HSCCI, Dr. Topham's responsibility is to support collaboration in biomedical research using High Performance Computational Resources. He will bring together academic biomedical and health-related Research Investigators, High Performance Computational Biologists, and HP Research Computing resources. Dr. Topham provides strategic direction to the HSCCI and facilitates the development of research projects between UR scientists and its corporate partners, as well as support from state and federal agencies.

Dr. Topham is a tenured Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, a member of the David H. Smith Center for Vaccine Biology and Immunology. He was Director and PI of the Respiratory Pathogens Research Center from 2011-2018. He also served as Director and PI of the New York Influenza Center of Excellence--one of the six national Centers of Excellence in Influenza Research and Surveillance supported by the National Institutes of Health, which ran from 2007-2021. He was recently appointed as the Founding Director of the University of Rochester Translational Immunology and Infectious Disease Institute. His research interests are in the area of immune responses to influenza and experimental vaccines and include computational modeling of the immune system.

Faculty Appointments

Professor - Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Center for Vaccine Biology and Immunology (SMD)

Marie Curran Wilson and Joseph Chamberlain Wilson Professorship - Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Center for Vaccine Biology and Immunology (SMD)

Director, Translational Immunology and Infectious Diseases Institute - Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Center for Vaccine Biology and Immunology (SMD) - Joint

Credentials

Post-doctoral Training & Residency

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, Department of Immunology (Mentor, Peter C. Doherty) 1994 - 1999

Education

PhD | University of Vermont. Cellular/Molecular Biology. 1994

MS | University of Vermont. Pathology. 1992

BS | University of Vermont. Biology. 1986

Awards

Scholar. 2001

Research

Virus infections of the respiratory tract are responsible for a great deal of illness and even death among the world's human population. Influenza and now coronaviruses, in particular, have a history of causing deadly pandemics and the continuing emergence of highly pathogenic H5 and H7 influenzas around the world is reason for concern. It is essential to understand how the immune system clears a virus infection and provides long term immunity if we are to design more rational vaccination and treatment strategies. The lab has a combined program in basic research using animal models of influenza infection and immunity, as well as a translational research program to study human immune responses to influenza and coronavirus infection and vaccination. Within these programs we are investigating the mechanisms that provide optimal immune protection against these viruses. One particular focus is to understand how T cells are regulated in the environment of the lung tissue and airways. We believe this is the key to generating long-lived protective immunity against diverse influenza viruses and coronavirus variants, including potential pandemic strains. The concepts and information we gather from the animal models are being directly translated into the human situation. To this end, we have established University of Rochester Translational Immunology and Infectious Disease Institute, a robust, collaborative program for basic and translational investigation of virology, pathogenesis, immunology, and vaccines.

Patents

Arrayed Detector System For Measurement of Influenza Immune Response

Issue date: July 16, 2013

Patent #: 8,486,619

Country: United States