Principal Investigators
Peter Barry, PhD
Core Scientist, UC Davis Center for Comparative Medicine
Dr. Barry’s lab optimized infection of RMs with RhCMV as a NHP model of human CMV, developing many of the reagents, techniques, and expertise for the RhCMV infections, including the viral backbone that Dr. Jarvis engineered as an EBOV vaccine. Dr. Barry will oversee both RhCMV-vectored vaccine and horizontal RhCMV reinfection studies in RMs at CNPRC.
Brian Bird, DVM, MSPH, PhD
Global Lead - Sierra Leone, UC Davis One Health Institute
Dr. Bird has extensive experience in viral hemorrhagic fevers including field expeditions, experimental BSL-4 animal models, vaccines, and diagnostics. He is global lead of the USAID-PREDICT “Ebola Host Project” in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia targeting bats/rodents as potential filovirus reservoirs. He will oversee all field-related activities, and contribute to LASV and CMV animal model development.
Michael Jarvis, MA, PhD
Co-founder, The Vaccine Group
Dr. Jarvis is a virologist with expertise in herpesvirus genetic manipulation and development of CMV as a vaccine vector for highly pathogenic emerging viruses. Dr. Jarvis will direct his work through TVG, a recent spin-out company from the Univ. of Plymouth (UK), his host institution, overseeing development of the MasCMV as a LASV vaccine and RhCMV-based disseminating EBOV vaccines in RMs.
Scott Nuismer, PhD
Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho
Dr. Nuismer has expertise in mathematical and computational modeling, with particular expertise modeling ecological and evolutionary processes including the spread and evolution of transmissible vaccines. Dr. Nuismer will oversee the modeling studies of pathogen spillover and emergence and vaccine dissemination.
Investigators
Wolfram Brune, Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology
Andrew Davison, University of Glasgow
Alec Redwood, University of Western Australia