James

T.

Gordy

,

PhD

I am currently an early-career Research Associate (Non-Tenure Faculty, less than 6 years) at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the MMI department. Trained in molecular microbiology and immunology, I have developed a keen interest in the development of augmented vaccines that target antigen to immature dendritic cells in order to achieve more robust immunity. Specifically, my dissertation studied the effects and immunological mechanisms of a novel anti-cancer vaccine platform in a mouse cancer model. This platform fused the chemokine Macrophage Inflammatory Protein 3-alpha (MIP3a) to melanoma associated antigen(s) of interest. MIP3a targets the antigen to immature dendritic cells via interaction with its receptor CCR6. In addition to the cancer model, my interests have broadened to include infectious disease models such as SARS-CoV-2 and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTb). I have been collaborating with Petros Karakousis in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for a few years working on a vaccine fusing MIP3a to Rel from MTb. Rel is a primary mediator of the stringent response pathway, necessary for MTb dormancy. We have shown that combining a DNA vaccine to Rel during isoniazid treatment greatly enhances the efficacy of the therapy. Fusing MIP3a to Rel has been shown recently to further reduce MTb burden in the mouse challenge model.