Home Department: Biology
Mentor: Catherine Blish, Medicine (Infectious Diseases)

Dengue virus exists in four different strains, each with different protein structure and genomes. Efforts to create a vaccine against all four serotypes have been largely unsuccessful. Dengue-infected cells express inflammatory ligands, which may also differ by serotype, and which activate an immune response. John aims to use immunological research methods and computational analysis to characterize immune responses to the different serotypes in order to inform the development of a better vaccine.