The McLaughlin Fellowship Fund Announces the Award of Ten New McLaughlin Fellowships

2008 New McLaughlin Fellows
Charlotte Nicholson, Diego Vargas Inchaustegui, Sandhya Das, Douglas Widman, Tomoki Yoshikawa, Raghavendran Kulasegaran Shylini, Dr. Peter Mason (McLaughlin Committee Chair), Carolina Sierra, Vitaliy Starosta, Alison Johnson, Nagaraja Thirumalapura

The James W. McLaughlin Fellowship Fund is pleased to announce that ten new fellowships in infectious diseases and immunology have been awarded. These include 4 pre-doctoral McLaughlin fellowships, 4 postdoctoral McLaughlin Fellowships and 2 Vale-Asche pre-doctoral fellowships. The latter fellowships are the result of a generous donation by the Vale-Asche Foundation of Houston, Texas, which donated $50,000 to UTMB for the establishment of two infectious disease fellowships, which are administered by The James W. McLaughlin Fellowship Fund Committee.

The two new Vale-Asche fellows are: Alison J. Johnson, who will complete a project entitled “CD4 + T cell response against acute HSV infection: Implications for vaccination” with Dr. G. Milligan and Carolina Sierra who will complete a project entitled “ Characterization of a new type 3 secretion system effector from A. hydrophilia” with Dr. A. Chopra.

The 4 new McLaughlin pre-doctoral fellows are: Raghavendran Kulasegaran Shylini, who will complete a project entitled “Molecular mechanism of 5’UTR mediated VEEV attenuation” with Dr. D. Gorenstein; Charlotte R. Nicholson, who will complete a project entitled “Suppression of T cell activity by sphingosine 1-phosphate in RSV infection” with Dr. R. Garofalo; Diego Vargas Inchaustegui, who will complete a project entitled “The role of innate immunity during Leishmania brazillensis infection in mice” with Dr. L. Soong; Douglas G. Widman, who will complete a project entitled “Developing a Second Generation Vaccine Candidate for West Nile Encephalitis” with Dr. P. Mason. The four new McLaughlin postdoctoral fellows are Sandhya T. Das, who will complete a project entitled “Role of CXCL8 monomer-dimer equilibrium in neutrophil recruitment in infection” with Dr. R. Krishna; Vitaliy Starosta who will complete a project entitled “Lipoxin A 4-mediated anti-inflammatory signaling” with Dr. A. Kurosky; Nagaraja R. Thirumalpura, who will complete a project entitled “Development of memory T cells and their role in protection against ehrlichiosis” with Dr. D. Walker; and Tomoki Yoshikawa, who will complete a project entitled “Define the role(s) of innate immune cells in the host responses to SARS-CoV” with Drs. C. Tseng and C. Peters.

The James W. McLaughlin Fellowship Fund is an endowment dedicated to exploring different aspects of infection and immunity. Dr. McLaughlin was a former UTMB faculty member and a member of The University of Texas Board of Regents. The fund supports pre- and postdoctoral research in infection and immunity. The Vale-Asche awards were created by the Foundation following a visit to the University during which the Foundation learned of the infectious disease research conducted within The Institute of Human Infections and Immunity.