• Unit Lead: Dr. Robert Gallo (James P. Cullison Professor of Medicine; Director of ITVI and Chair of the Recruitment Committee at ITVI; Director of the Microbial Oncology Program, Tampa General Hospital Cancer Institute)

• Focus: Advancing novel approaches to halt HIV-associated comorbidities and chronic immune dysfunction through translational research in collaboration with Dr. J. Zachary Porterfield and Dr. Yutaka Tagaya, while also supporting collaborative investigations with Dr. Davide Zella and Dr. Francesca Beneditte involving bacterial proteins, inflammation, and cancer-associated disease processes.

• Unit Lead: Dr. Shyam S. Mohapatra (Distinguished Health Professor and Program Director of Antiviral Development & Therapy)

• Focus: Discovery and development of broad-spectrum antiviral and anti-inflammatory nanomedicines (BAANs) and investigating the integrated microbiome and multiomic mechanisms and clinical translation.

• Collaborators: Dr. Subhra Mohapatra, Dr. Robert C. Gallo, Dr. Christian Brechot, Dr. Eleni Markoutsa,  Dr. J. Zachary Porterfield, Dr. Hongshuo Song, Dr. Yutaka Tagay

• Research Team: Tahniat Afsari (Post Doctoral Fellow), Ryan J Green (Post Doctoral Fellow), Akshata Patne (Research Associate), Stuti Dasgupta (Research Assistant)

• Unit Leads: Dr. Davide Zella (Associate Professor and Director of the Bacterial Oncogenesis Unit), Dr. Francesca Benedetti (Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the Bacterial Oncogenesis Unit) 

• Focus: Investigating how specific bacteria promote cancer and reproductive dysfunction through inflammation, immune modulation, and altered cellular signaling

• Collaborators: Dr. Robert Gallo, Dr. Christian Brechot, Dr. Eduardo Sotomayor

• Research Team: Camila Summers, (Research Scientist),  Faith Robinson, undergraduate student

• Unit Lead: Dr. Noah Sather (Professor, Head of Basic Viral Immunology) 

• Themes: Host-pathogen immune interactions, mechanisms of protection from viral infection, host immune responses to infection and vaccination, naturally acquired protective immunity.

• Focus: We seek to make fundamental breakthroughs about the mechanisms of immune protection from viral infection. We aim to leverage these foundational discoveries to guide the development of novel vaccine or treatment approaches. 

• Collaborators: Dr. Robert C. Gallo, Dr. Zach Porterfield, Dr. Hongshuo Song, Dr. Donald L. Sodora (University of Washington and the Seattle Children's Research Institute, Dr. Jeremy Smedley (New Iberia Research Center, University of Louisiana Lafayette).

• Research Team: Nicholas Dambraskas (Associate in Research) and Andrew Raappana (Associate in Research)

• Unit Lead: Dr. Shyamasundaran Kottilil (Professor, Director, Center for the Study of Liver Disease (COLD), Clinical Director of ITVI)

• Theme: Bench-to-bedside research on achieving functional cure and reducing morbidity and mortality of chronic viral infections, including HIV and hepatitis viruses

• Focus: Our research is focused on translational research on understanding the pathogenesis of viral persistence and developing therapeutic approaches to achieve functional cure.

• Collaborators: Dr. Emmanuel Thomas (University of Miami), Dr. Kenneth Sherman (Harvard University), Dr. Johan Auwerx (Lausanne),

• Research Team: Tanya Lizbeth Joseph (Research Assistant)

• Unit Lead: Senior Investigator — recruitment underway 

• Current Scientific Lead: Dr. Racheal S. Dube Mandishora

• Theme: Infectious Diseases, Viral Oncology, Viral Genomics, and HIV-Associated Malignancies

• Focus: 

  EBV: Our current research aims to define the oncogenic role of EBV in Conjunctival Squamous Cell Carcinoma (cSCC). We aim to elucidate viral tropism and distinct latency programs to discover biomarkers for early diagnosis.

  HPV: In tandem, we investigate high-risk HPV genetic diversity across multi-site lesions among people living with HIV (PLWH). This includes analyzing variant lineage and sub-lineage distribution and tissue-specific mutation rates to improve clinical risk stratification.

• Research Team: Dr. Racheal S. Dube Mandishora

• Collaborators: Dr. Robert C. Gallo, Dr. J. Zachary Porterfield, Dr. Yutaka Tagaya, Dr. Juan David Ramírez-González

• Long-standing institutional collaborators from the University of Zimbabwe; Newlands Clinic Harare (Zimbabwe), Oslo Metropolitan University and Akershus University Hospital (Norway); University of California San Francisco (A); International Agency for Research on Cancer (World Health Organization); Moffitt Cancer Center (USA); and AIDS Malignancy Consortium (USA/international)
  

•  Unit Lead: Dr. J. Zachary Porterfield

• Theme: Reducing HIV-Associated Comorbidities and Advancing Toward a Functional Cure

• Focus: Understanding HIV’s contribution to chronic inflammation, immune dysfunction, and cancer risk; Integrating clinical and molecular research; Supporting clinical trials for viral infections

• Collaborators: From ITVI: Dr. Robert C. Gallo, Dr. Yutaka Tagaya, Dr. Hongshuo Song; From University of South Florida Division of Infectious Disease: Dr. Kami Kim, Dr. Charurut Somboonwit, Dr. Jacqueline Sherbuk, Dr. Ana Velez, MD; From Africa Health Research Institute: Dr. Henrik Kloverpris; From University of KwaZulu-Natal: Dr. Andile Sibiya and Dr. Warren Kuhn; From Ragon Institute of MIT and Harvard University; Dr. Mathias Lichterfeld; From Seattle Children’s / University of Washington, Dr. Noah Sather, PhD; From Oxford University, Dr. Philip Goulder

• Research Team: Danielle Curtis, MPH (Unit Manager), Derek Jacobs, MD PhD (Graduate Student), and Lily Pohlenz (PhD Graduate Student)

• Unit Lead: Dr. Hongshuo Song (Associate Professor, Head of the Seminar and Journal Club Committee)

• Theme: HIV molecular virology, HIV transmission fitness, and immunopathogenesis; Molecular mechanisms for HIV-related cancer.

• Focus: We focus on the fundamental aspects of HIV-1 transmissibility, immunopathogenesis, and persistence. Our long-term goal is to translate knowledge into approaches toward effective HIV prevention and functional cure. 

• Collaborators: Dr. Robert C. Gallo, Dr. Charurut Somboonwit, US Military HIV Research Program, Vaccine Research Center (NIH), Los Alamos National Laboratory

• Research Team: Dr. Abdur Rashid, (postdoctoral fellow), Georgina Agyekum, (PhD student), Cinthya Zelaya Aparicio, (research assistant), Hexiang Wang, (research assistant)

• Unit Lead: Dr. Michael N. Teng (Associate Professor, Director of Virology Education and Assistant Director of ITVI)

• Theme: Viral innate immune evasion mechanisms

• Focus: Our laboratory studies host-virus interactions in viral pathogenesis. In particular, we are interested in how viral proteins affect host signal transduction pathways to enhance viral replication. Our research focuses on the role of the nonstructural proteins of respiratory syncytial virus and their effect on host innate antiviral responses.

• Collaborators: Dr. Reena Ghildyal (University of Canberra), Dr. Santanu Bose (Washington State University), Dr. Biao He (University of Georgia), Dr. Jennifer Binning (Moffitt Cancer Center), Dr. Bill Baker (USF, Chemistry)

• Research Team: Kim Tran (Research Biologist)

• Unit Lead: Dr. Yutaka Tagaya (Assistant Professor, Director of Laboratory Operations)

• Theme: Viral Persistence and T-Cell Transformation

• Focus: Exploring HTLV-1 mechanisms of infection and its role in adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL) + T cell immunity in graft-versus-host disease

• Collaborators: Dr. Robert C. Gallo, Dr. Eduardo Sotomayor

• Research Team: Nathan Fisher, (summer student)

Unit Lead: Dr. Rahul S. Shinde (Associate Professor)

Theme: Defining Microbe–Metabolite–Immune Pathways to Advance Cancer Therapy

Focus: Identifying microbial metabolites and microbial metabolic pathways that regulate innate and adaptive anti-tumor immunity; characterizing their mechanisms and effects within the tumor microenvironment (TME), including macrophage/TAM function, myeloid-cell reprogramming, and T-cell activity; integrating microbiome, metabolomics, immunology, and translational studies to develop biomarkers and metabolite-, diet-, microbe-, and immune-based therapeutic strategies for virus-associated and other cancers.

Collaborator: Dr. Robert Gallo, Dr. Christian Brechot, Dr. Eduardo Sotomayor, Dr. Hariom Yadav 

Research Team: Dr. Erin Gibbons (Postdoctoral fellow)

• Unit Lead: Dr. Eleni Markoutsa (Assistant Professor) 

• Theme: Infectious Diseases and Neurodegenerative Disorders, Cellular Senescence, Nanomedicine

• Focus: Our current research focuses on the role of viral infections in the development and progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Our findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infection increases the senescent cell burden and heightens the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. We aim to elucidate the mechanisms by which viral infections trigger cellular senescence and to develop extracellular vesicle-based interventions to mitigate the effects of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype on the aging brain.

• Collaborator: Dr. Shyam Mohapatra

• Research Team: Sai Shilpa Jajula (Graduate Student), Nandita Patil (Graduate Student)

• Supervisor: Dr. Yutaka Tagaya (Assistant Professor, Director of Laboratory Operations)

• Capability: Scope9-color BD Melody machine in the BSL3, for cell sorting of infectious cells (e.g., HIV, HTLV-1, HBV/HCV, SARS-COV2) for USF Tampa campus

• Planned Unit

• Focus: Studying mosquito-borne viruses such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya with a special emphasis on Florida and Latin America; integrating vector surveillance, viral genomics, and outbreak modeling

• Expanding Unit

• Focus: EBV driven cancers such as lymphomas and nasopharyngeal carcinoma; identifying latent gene expression patterns and therapeutic targets 

• Planned Unit

• Focus: HPV-associated malignancies and immune mechanisms of viral persistence