Thomas Hope, PhD
Professor, Cell and Molecular Biology; Feinberg School of Medicine
Research Program
Link
Cancer-Focused Research
My laboratory has focused on utilizing the methods of cell biology to study HIV. I was one of the pioneers of taking this approach. To facilitate our work, we have developed a series of novel tools and approaches allowing the direct visualization of virions and infected cells in tissue culture and live animal models. Over the past 10 years, we began to utilize these tools to study the interaction of HIV with the mucosal barriers exposed during sexual transmission. These studies, utilizing human tissue explant models and the vaginal challenge non-human primate (NHP) models, have provided important insights into how HIV interacts with and penetrates apparently intact mucosal barriers to mediate sexual transmission.