Staff
Eastern Virginia Medical School
As the Head of Virology, Dr. Saifuddin oversees CONRAD microbiology and virology research program. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Prior to joining CONRAD in 2002, he served on the faculty in the Department of Immunology/Microbiology at Rush University Medical School in Chicago, where he also managed a retrovirology laboratory. Dr. Saifuddin has significant experience in molecular virology including HIV research, animal models, virus and cell culture, production of new cell lines, expression of recombinant proteins, flow cytometry, PCR and other molecular biology techniques; and he has published extensively in these areas. He received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Bangladesh Agricultural University in 1981; and Doctor of Philosophy degree in virology from Massey University, New Zealand, in 1990. Dr. Saifuddin received his postdoctoral training in molecular virology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining Rush University, where he was actively involved in HIV research and teaching. His papers first demonstrated how HIV virus hijacks cellular proteins to subvert human immune defense system. He was given a distinguished researcher certificate by the Sigma Xi Scientific Society in 1996. At CONRAD Dr. Saifuddin has been involved in identifying areas of research priority and creating and maintaining an active communication with a large network of investigators. He also participates in active solicitation and evaluation of formal and informal research proposals for funding by CONRAD. Besides reviewing proposals for CONRAD Dr. Saifuddin also reviews HIV/AIDS related grant proposals for other national and international organizations including US National Institutes of Health and World Health Organization. The current research interests of Dr. Saifuddin include:
- Development and validation of non-human primate models for sexual transmission of HIV in women.
- Development of small animal models for HIV infection.
- Effects of common sexually-transmitted infections on HIV transmission and pathogenesis.
- Preclinical evaluation of candidate microbicides against HIV and other infections.
Publications
- RT-SHIV, an infectious CCR5-tropic chimeric virus suitable for evaluating HIV reverse transcriptase inhibitors in macaque models
- HSV type 2 infection increases HIV DNA detection in vaginal tissue of mice expressing human CD4 and CCR5
- Macaca fascicularis are highly susceptible to an RT-SHIV following intravaginal inoculation: a new model for microbicide evaluation
- The utilization of humanized mouse models for the study of human retroviral infections
- Human cyclin T1 expression ameliorates a T-cell-specific transcriptional limitation for HIV in transgenic rats, but is not sufficient for a productive infection of prototype R5 HIV-1 strains ex vivo
- Effect of transcription peptide inhibitors on HIV-1 replication
- Retroviral proteomics and interactomes: intricate balances of cell survival and viral replication
- Identifying membrane protein surface markers of HIV-1 infection
- Induction of potent local cellular immunity with low dose X4 SHIVSF33A vaginal exposure
- Efficient repeated low-dose intravaginal infection with X4 and R5 SHIVs in rhesus macaque: implications for HIV-1 transmission in humans