The Virus-Cell Dance: HIV Neuropathology in the HAART Era

Speakers

Sunhee C. Lee, MD

Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University
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Sunhee Lee is professor of pathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) at Yeshiva University. Her research interest is the inflammatory mechanism of human glial cell activation and the role of pathogens such as human immunodeficiency virus and the opportunistic fungal organism Cryptococcus neoformans. Lee focuses on translational research. She defines the involvement of inflammatory mediators in human brain diseases including AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and stroke. The search for potential therapeutics is always a goal.

Lee received her MD from Seoul National University in Korea. After a brief period of clinical practice, she entered the Pathology Residency Program at the AECOM, where, under the guidance of Dennis Dickson, she was introduced to academic neuropathology. She went to the University of Maryland to further her training in biochemistry and molecular biology. She then returned to AECOM, joining the research team in the Department of Pathology, where she now leads her own laboratory specializing in microglial cell pathobiology.

David J. Volsky, PhD

Columbia University Medical Center and Molecular Virology Division, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center
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David Volsky is professor of pathology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University and the director of the Molecular Virology Laboratory at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital. His research interests center on the neuropathogenesis of HIV infection and how various immune cells in the brain mediate that process.

Volsky received his PhD in biochemistry from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. His postdoctoral studies were in tumor biology and virology with George Klein at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Volsky then joined the faculty at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha where he established and directed the molecular biology laboratory there, one of the first dedicated to HIV/AIDS research in the country. In 1987, Volsky moved to the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University and became director of the Molecular Virology Division at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Ehud Lavi, MD

Weill Medical College, Cornell University
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Ehud Lavi is professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and chief of the Neuropathology Service at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. His research interest is in neurovirology and neuroimmunology. Lavi is investigating an experimental model of multiple sclerosis in mice: coronavirus-induced demyelination. The main focus of investigation is the interaction between viruses and the central nervous system (CNS) and includes the role of astrocytes and microglia in cytokine signaling in the CNS as well as the role of the viral glycoprotein in neurotropism.

Lavi received his MD from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and did a neurology residency at Hadassah Hospital, at the Hebrew University School of Medicine in Jerusalem, Israel. Following a research fellowship in neurovirology at the University of Pennsylvania and the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, he trained in anatomic pathology at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, followed by a neuropathology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1991, Lavi joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as attending neuropathologist until 2005 when he moved to Cornell University.

Jill U. Adams

Jill U. Adams is a scientist-turned-science-writer based in Albany, New York.