Research Vision:

Dr. Schifanella's research focuses on Personalized Medicine, Medical and Surgical Outcomes, and Infectious Diseases. The goal of his research is to identify mechanisms that can be leveraged to personalize therapeutic interventions to maximize medical outcomes. As of February 2020, Dr. Schifanella also works on COVID-19 research. He has contributed to several SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis, epidemiologic, and therapeutic/preventive projects.

Research Areas:

• Infectious and tropical diseases/HIV

• Immunology

• Experimental design

Research Publications:

1. Martino C, Kellman BP, Sandoval DR, Clausen TM, Marotz CA, Song SJ, Wandro S, Zaramela LS, Salido Benítez RA, Zhu Q, Armingol E, Vázquez-Baeza Y, McDonald D, Sorrentino JT, Taylor B, Belda-Ferre P, Liang C, Zhang Y, Schifanella L, Klatt NR, Havulinna AS, Jousilahti P, Huang S, Haiminen N, Parida L, Kim HC, Swafford AD, Zengler K, Cheng S, Inouye M, Niiranen T, Jain M, Salomaa V, Esko JD, Lewis NE, Knight R. Bacterial modification of the host glycosaminoglycan heparan sulfate modulates SARS-CoV-2 infectivity. bioRxiv doi: 10.1101/2020.08.17.238444.

2. Joag V, Wijeyesinghe S, Stolley JM, Quarnstrom CF, Dileepan T, Soerens AG, Sangala JA, O'Flanagan SD, Gavil NV, Hong SW, Bhela S, Gangadhara S, Weyu E, Matchett WE, Thiede J, Krishna V, Cheeran MC, Bold TD, Amara R, Southern P, Hart GT, Schifanella L, Vezys V, Jenkins MK, Langlois RA, Masopust D. Cutting Edge: Mouse SARS-CoV-2 Epitope Reveals Infection and Vaccine-Elicited CD8 T Cell Responses. J Immunol. 2021 Mar 1;206(5):931-935. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.2001400.

3. Cheu RK, Gustin AT, Lee C, Schifanella L, Miller CJ, Ha A, Kim C, Rodriguez VJ, Fischl M, Burgener AD, Arnold KB, Alcaide ML, Klatt NR. Impact of vaginal microbiome communities on HIV antiretroviral-based pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drug metabolism. PLoS Pathog. 2020 Dec 3;16(12):e1009024. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1009024.

4. Schifanella L, Barnett SW, Bissa M, Galli V, Doster MN, Vaccari M, Tomaras GD, Shen X, Phogat S, Pal R, Montefiori DC, LaBranche CC, Rao M, Trinh HV, Washington-Parks R, Liyanage NPM, Gorini G, Brown DR, Liang F, Loré K, Venzon DJ, Magnanelli W, Metrinko M, Kramer J, Breed M, Alter G, Ruprecht RM, Franchini G. ALVAC-HIV B/C candidate HIV vaccine efficacy dependent on neutralization profile of challenge virus and adjuvant dose and type. PLoS Pathog. 2019 Dec 3;15(12):e1008121. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1008121.

5. Vaccari M, Gordon SN, Fourati S, Schifanella L, Liyanage NP, Cameron M, Keele BF, Shen X, Tomaras GD, Billings E, Rao M, Chung AW, Dowell KG, Bailey-Kellogg C, Brown EP, Ackerman ME, Vargas-Inchaustegui DA, Whitney S, Doster MN, Binello N, Pegu P, Montefiori DC, Foulds K, Quinn DS, Donaldson M, Liang F, Loré K, Roederer M, Koup RA, McDermott A, Ma ZM, Miller CJ, Phan TB, Forthal DN, Blackburn M, Caccuri F, Bissa M, Ferrari G, Kalyanaraman V, Ferrari MG, Thompson D, Robert-Guroff M, Ratto-Kim S, Kim JH, Michael NL, Phogat S, Barnett SW, Tartaglia J, Venzon D, Stablein DM, Alter G, Sekaly RP, Franchini G. Adjuvant-dependent innate and adaptive immune signatures of risk of SIVmac251 acquisition. Nat Med. 2016 Jul;22(7):762-70. doi: 10.1038/nm.4105.