Microbiology and Immunology News

Dr. Anice Lowen has been promoted to professor of Microbiology and Immunology as of September 1, 2022.

Dr. Lowen's research aims to reveal features of influenza A virus (IAV) biology that support the rapid evolution of this pathogen. This work is important because it is the changeability of this virus that marks it as a significant challenge to public health. For example, seasonal influenza epidemics recur annually due to the emergence of novel variant viruses that escape pre-existing immunity in the human population. Efforts to vaccinate against influenza require public health officials to predict approximately nine months in advance which variant virus will predominate in the next winter season – a very difficult task given that viral evolution and viral spread across the globe occur on similar time scales. The evolution of IAVs that circulate in non-human hosts is also a concern: in addition to their agricultural importance, such viruses can transmit to humans and cause self-limiting zoonotic infections or pandemics. In the last century, we have experienced three influenza pandemics (in 1957, 1968 and 2009).

Dr. Lowen is Co-Principal Investigator of the Emory Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (Emory-CEIRR) together with Dr. Walter Orenstein (Dept. of Medicine). Through these efforts, this program was renewed in April 2021 and is now in its 3^rd funding period and 15^th year at Emory. As part of the wider CEIRR network, the Emory-CEIRR will integrate basic and clinical research to advance understanding of respiratory virus infection, transmission, evolution and emergence, and to fill key gaps in our understanding of the human immune response to respiratory virus infection and vaccination.

Dr. Lowen is very active in the graduate programs of the Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. She currently serves as the Director of the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics (MMG) graduate program and, in this role, plans to ensure that Emory continues to offer first rate graduate education in the microbiological sciences while reinvigorating efforts to increase diversity in the student body and ensure an inclusive environment for students and faculty. Previously, she served as the Director of Graduate Studies of MMG, a role in which she worked with students to ensure they were receiving quality mentoring and were on track toward degree completion. Prior to taking on this role, she served as the chair of the MMG Admissions Committee. She has been a member of the MMG Program Executive Committee in various capacities for most of her time at Emory. Dr. Lowen is also active in the teaching, seminar series and recruitment efforts of the Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis (IMP) and Population Biology and Ecology and Evolution (PBEE) graduate programs.

As part of her work with Emory's Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences programs, Dr. Lowen has dedicated effective mentoring of graduate students and to date eight students have completed their PhDs under her advisement. Each student graduated with multiple publications and all have continued their careers in research-related positions as post-doctoral fellows, state or federal government scientists, medical writers, or consultants.

Over the past five years, Dr. Lowen chaired or co-chaired four search committees within the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and served on search committees seeking to recruit faculty to the Emory Vaccine Center and the Department of Biochemistry. She serves as a standing member on the Viral Pathogenesis and Immunology study section of the NIH Center for Scientific Review. She serves as an Editor for the Journal of Virology, the American Society for Microbiology’s flagship virology journal and an important journal in her field. She is also an Editor and Associate Editor, respectively, for mSphere, an ASM journal covering the full breadth of microbiology, and PLOS Pathogens, another leading journal in the field.

On April 10, 2023, the department of Microbiology and Immunology will celebrate the 100^th birthday of Dr. John K. Spitznagel, MD, FACP, former department chair, with Dr. Jeremy Boss as the 25^th annual seminar speaker.

Dr. Spitznagel is a professor emeritus of microbiology and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine and a former advisor to the National Institutes of Health, best-known for his groundbreaking work in bacteriology and infectious disease research. Born and raised in an area stricken by significant waves of scarlet fever, meningitis, and tuberculosis, Dr. Spitznagel developed an early interest in medicine that was cemented by his own experience with appendicitis at age 11. He earned his MD from Columbia University in 1946, completed his medical internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1946, and completed his residency in internal medicine at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1951.

From 1957 until 1979, Dr. Spitznagel was a professor of microbiology and infectious diseases at the University of North Carolina. In 1979 he became a professor and chair of the department of microbiology and immunology at Emory University, a position he considers to be a career highlight. He was granted professor emeritus status in 1993, but remained active with Emory University, serving as associate dean of research in 1997 and 1998. In 2002, he helped co-found the Good Samaritan Health and Wellness Center in Jasper, Georgia, where he continued to see patients as an attending physician until 2012.

Dr. Spitznagel was the first scientist to demonstrate cationic antimicrobial proteins in leukocyte granules and was the co-discoverer of an antimicrobial cationic protein in polymorphic granules, among other significant discoveries. He is the former associate editor of the Journal of Immunology, the Journal of the Reticuloendothelial Society, and Infection and Immunity, and the namesake of the Emory University Spitznagel Lectureship in the department of Microbiology and Immunology. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Disease Society and a former president of the American Medical School Microbiology and Immunology section. In recognition of his contributions to the field of microbiology and infectious disease, Dr. Spitznagel was presented with a Research Career Development Award from the United States Public Health Service. 

The 25^th annual John Spitznagel seminar will held on Monday, April 10^th, 3:45 to 4:45 pm, in person in the Whitehead Auditorium and virtually via Zoom. Dr. Boss will speak on, "Transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of B cell immune responses." Please contact Rebecca Masel for more information or Zoom instructions.

In January 2023, the lab of Dr. Marcin Grabowicz had a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled, "Teasing apart the evolution of lipoprotein trafficking in Gram-negative bacteria reveals a bifunctional LolA".