Ramesh K. Akkina MS, PhD

Dr. Akkina is Professor of Virology. The Akkina laboratory focuses on vaccination and antiviral therapy strategies for HIV intervention using rodent models. Ongoing studies involve developing high-efficiency gene transfer methods including viral pseudotype and ribozyme expressing vectors. Dr. Akkina’s laboratory is funded by multiple NIH grants and other extramural sources and is unique in developing and utilizing SCID-hu and RAG mice as novel models in which to study HIV and Dengue virus intervention. This work has to lead to new models to assess topical mucosally applied drugs to prevent sexually transmitted HIV infection.