Donna D. Eason, Ph.D.
Dr. Eason received her Ph.D. from the University of South Florida in 2000 and promptly joined the Department of Pediatrics as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Gary W. Litman and in 2005 she was promoted to Assistant Professor. Dr. Eason's major research interests are determining the function of BIVM (Basic Immunoglobulin-like Variable Motif Protein), development of models for human cancers using transgenic zebrafish, development of tumor-targeted chemotherapeutic drug delivery methods using biodegradable nanospheres and the discovery of novel AKT2 inhibitors identified by virtual molecular docking methods.
Education & Training
| B.A. | University of South Florida, Microbiology, 1994 |
| Ph.D. | University of South Florida, Biochemistry/Molecular Biology, 2000 |
Scholarly Activity
- Instructor for Moffitt Cancer Biology II course- "Structures involved in self/nonself recognition."
- Preceptor USF Department of Pediatrics Allergy and Immunology Fellows "Antigen processing and presentation to T lymphocytes."
Selected Publications
Yoder JA, Hawke NA, Eason DD, Mueller MG, Davids BJ, Gillin FD, Litman GW. BIVM, a novel gene widely distributed among deuterostomes, shares a core sequence with an unusual gene in Giardia lamblia. Genomics 2002, 79:750-755.
Eason DD, LeBron C, Coppola D, Moscinski LC, Livingston S, Sutton ET, Blanck G. Development of CD30+ lymphoproliferative disease in mice lacking interferon regulatory factor-1. Oncogene 2003, 22:6166-6176.
Eason DD, Litman RT, Luer CA, Kerr W, Litman GW. Expression of individual immunoglobulin genes occurs in an unusual system consisting of multiple independent loci. European Journal of Immunology, 2004, 34, 2551-2558.
Eason DD, Cannon JP, Haire RN, Rast JP, Ostrov D, Litman GW. Mechanisms of antigen receptor evolution. Seminars in Immunology, 2004, 16, 215-226.
Cannon JP, Haire RN, Mueller MG, Litman RT, Eason DD, Tinnemore D, Amemiya CT, Ota T, Litman GW. Ancient divergence of a complex family of immune-type receptor genes. Immunogenetics, 2006, 58, 362-373.
Litman GW, Cannon JP, Dishaw LJ, Haire RN, Eason DD, Yoder JA, Hernandez Prada J, Ostrov DA. Immunoglobulin variable regions in molecules exhibiting characteristics of innate and adaptive immune receptors. Immunologic Research, 2007, 38, 294-304.
