Faculty

Ronald C. Montelaro, PhD Professor, Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics, Co-Director, Center for Vaccine Research --Professor, Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology - Graduate School of Public Health (Secondary Appointment) E-mail: rmont@pitt.edu Phone: 412-648-8869 Fax: 412-624-4440 Address: Center for Vaccine Research 9016 BST3 3501 Fifth Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15261

Education

BS; Biochemistry, Louisiana State University; 1971
PhD; Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison; 1975

Research Interests

Viral immunology and vaccine development, especially as related to AIDS, emerging diseases, and biodefense.

Research Summary

The primary focus of the Montelaro lab is to elucidate the intricate interactions between viral pathogens and host immune responses to determine the mechanisms by with host immunity contributes to protection and disease and to serve as a basis for the development of effective vaccines. 
A particular interest of the lab is to develop effective strategies to overcome the challenge of natural viral antigenic variation that has evolved as a common complication to the development of effective vaccines to important viral diseases, including those related to biodefense and emerging infectious diseases.  Systems currently under investigation include HIV-1 and related animal lentiviruses (SHIV, SIV, and EIAV), dengue virus, and influenza virus.  Studies in these systems include investigation of the nature and role of antigenic variation during infection, the development of novel assays to characterize virus-specific innate, humoral, and cellular immune responses, and the design of engineered immunogens for effective vaccination against variant strains of a particular virus. 

Affiliations

• Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

• Professor of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health

• Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

• Co-Director, Center for Vaccine Research, University of Pittsburgh

• Co-Director, Pittsburgh Center for HIV-1 Protein Interactions, University of Pittsburgh

• Director, Peptide Synthesis Core, University of Pittsburgh

• Member, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute

Recent Publications

Dr. Montelaro is the author of over 200 publications since 1975. The following listing includes only selected publications from 2003 to the present.

• Toapanta, F., Craigo, J., Montelaro, R., and Ross, T. (2007) Reduction of anti-HIV-1 Gag immune responses during co-immunization: immune interference by HIV-1 envelope.  Curr.HIV Res. 5:199-209.

• Tagmyer, T., Craigo, J., Cook, S., Issel, C., and Montelaro, R. (2007) Envelope-specific T-helper and CTL responses associated with protective immunity to equine infectious anemia virus.  J. Gen. Virol. 88: 1324-1336.

• Chen, C., Jin, J., Rubin, M. Huang, L., Sturgeon, T., Weixel, K., Storlz, D., Watkins, S., Bamburg, J., Weisz, O., and Montelaro, R. (2007) Association of Gag multimers with filamentous actin during equine infectious anemia virus assembly.  Curr. HIV Res. 5: 315-323.

• Novak, K, Diamond, W., Kirakodu, S., Peyyala, R., Anderson, K., Montelaro, R., Mietzner, T. (2007) Efficacy of de novo derived antimicrobial peptide WLBU2 against oral bacteria.  Antimicrob. Agents Chemotherapy 51: 1837-1839.

• Deslouches, B., Gonzalez, I., DeAlmeida, D., Islam, K., Steele, C., Montelaro, R., and MietznerT. (2007) De novo derived cationic microbial peptides activity in a murine model of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteremia. J. Antimicrob. Chemother. 60: 669-672.

• Newman, J., Sturgeon, T., Gupta, P., and Montelaro, R. (2007)Differential functional phenotypes of two primary HIV-1 strains resulting from homologous point mutations in the LLP domains of the envelope gp41 intracytoplasmic domain.  Virol. 371:102-116.

• Jin, J., Sturgeon,T., Chen, C., Watkins, S., Weisz, O., and Montelaro, R. (2007) Distinct assembly and budding pathways utilized by EIAV and HIV-1 revealed by bimolecular fluorescence complementations assays.  J. Virol. 81:11226-11235.

• Craigo, J., Zhang, B., Barnes, S., Tagmyer, T., Cook, S., Issel, C. and Montelaro, R. (2007) Envelope variation as a primary determinant of lentiviral vaccine efficacy. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104: 15105-15110.

• Zhang, B., Sun, C., Cascio, M., Montelaro, R. (2008) Mapping of equine lentivirus receptor-1 residues critical for EIAV envelope binding. J. Virol. 82: 1204-1213.

• Tagmyer, T., Craigo, J., Cook, S., Issel, C., and Montelaro, R. (2008) Envelope peptide determinants of vaccine protection and the effects of sequence variation on immune recognition. J. Virol. 82:4052-4063.

• Pawar, S., Mattila, J., Sturgeon, T., Lin, P., Narayan, O., Montelaro, R., and Flynn, J. (2008) Comparison of the effects of pathogenic simian human immunodeficiency virus strains SHIV89.6P and SHIV-Ku2 in cynomolgus macaques. AIDS Res. Human Retroviruses 24: 643-654.

• Yang, W., Qiu, C., Biswas, N., Jin, J., Watkins, S., Montelaro, R., Coyne, C., and Wang, T. (2008) Correlation of tight junction-like distribution of claudin-1 to the cellular tropism of HCV. J. Biol. Chem. 283: 8643-8653.

• Sun, C., Zhang, B., Jin, J., and Montelaro, R. (2008) Equine infectious anemia virus binding to the equine lentivirus receptor-1 is mediated by complex discontinuous sequences in the viral envelope gp90 protein.  J. Gen. Virol. 89: 2010-2018.

Dr. Montelaro's Lab

Jodi Craigo, PhD, Research Assistant Professor (Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics)

Baoshan Zhang, PhD, Research Instructor (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics)

Jonathan Steckbeck, BS, Graduate Research Assistant (Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics Graduate Program)

Shannon Barnes, M.S., Research Specialist IV

Tim Sturgeon, B.S., Research Specialist IV