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1615 Poydras Street - Suite 1000
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 Alistair Ramsay, PhD
Areas of Research: Immunotherapy of Infectious Diseases Dr. Ramsey, Director of the Gene Therapy Program at LSUHSC in New Orleans, has a broad research interests concerning the immunobiology of infections by viruses and other intracellular parasites, mucosal immune regulation, and immune regulation of allergic responses. The ultimate aim is to develop improved vaccines against a variety of currently intractable diseases (i.e. HIV/AIDS, TB, asthma) that have presented major difficulties for conventional approaches to vaccination. A particular focus has been HIV immunobiology and vaccine development. Dr. Ramsey's team developed a “prime-boost” vaccination strategy that generates sustained, high-level cell-mediated immune responses against encoded HIV antigens in both mice and macaque monkeys. Successful pre-clinical studies have led to the initiation of clinical trials. The outstanding potential of prime-boost vaccination has lead to establish projects to develop effective vaccines against a variety of infectious and non-infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, toxoplasmosis, asthma, and safer smallpox vaccines. Selected Publications Ranasinghe, C., Medveczky, J.C., Woltring, D., Ke, G., Coupar, B., Boyle, D., Ramsay, A.J., and Ramshaw, I.A. Evaluation of fowlpox-vaccinia virus prime-boost vaccine strategies for high-level mucosal and systemic immunity against HIV-1. Vaccine, (2006) 24(31-32):5881-5895 Kelleher, A.D., Puls, R.L., Munier, M.L., Bebbington, M., Boyle, D., Coupar, B., French, R., Fielden, R., Jaramillo, A., Kent, S.J., Keoshkerian, E., Kippax, S., Law, M.G., Purcell, D., Ramsay, A.J., Ramshaw, I., Satchell, C., Thomson, S., Van Bockel, D., Wand, H., Zaunders, J., Cooper, D., and Emery, S. A randomized, placebo-controlled phase I trial of DNA prime, recombinant fowlpox virus boost prophylactic vaccine for HIV-1. AIDS20, (2006) (2):294-297 Chen, K., Chen, L., Zhao, P., Marrero, L., Keoshkerian, E., Ramsay, A.J., and Cui, Y. Flourolysometric determination of cell-mediated cytotoxicity using Green Fluorescent Protein and Red Fluorescent Protein expressing target cells. Journal of Immunological Methods, (2005) 300(1-2):100-114 Happel, K.I., Lockhart, E., Mason, C.M., Poretta, E., Keoshkerian, E., Odden, A.R., Nelson, S., and Ramsay, A.J. Pulmonary IL-23 gene delivery increases local T cell immunity and inhibits growth on Mycobacterium tuberbulosis in the lungs. Infection and Immunity, (2005) 73(9):5782-5788 Kent, S.J., Dale, C.J., Ranasinghe, C., Stratov, I., DeRose, R., Chea, S., Montefiori, D.C., Thomson, S., Ramshaw, I.A., Coupar, B., Boyle, D.B., Law, M., Wilson, K.W., and Ramsay, A.J. Mucosally-administered HIV/SIV DNA and fowlpoxvirus-based recombinant vaccines reduce acute phase viral replication in macaques following vaginal challenge with CCR5+ SHIV. Vaccine, (2005) 23(42): 5099-5021 |
