Virology & Mycology
Open Access

Jacques Robert

Biography

Jacques Robert, PhD, is Associate Professor in the department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, New York. His research interests are in the evolutionary and developmental aspects of tumor and viral immunity. He has worked and published extensively in the area of thymocyte differentiation, immunomodulation, molecular evolution of immunologically relevant genes and phylogeny of cellular immunity. His research focuses on the amphibian Xenopus, which he has developed as a unique versatile comparative model system to study immunity to tumors, as well as pathogenesis and immunity to ranaviruses (Iridoviridae) that are causing emerging infectious diseases in amphibians. He is principal investigator in several NIH and NSF funded awards including a NIH-funded Xenopus laevis research resource for immunobiology that is the worlds most comprehensive resource specializing in the use of this species for immunological research and providing technical assistance, animals, and reagents to the scientific community.

Research Interest

The overall goal of our research is to understand the co-evolutionary relationships between the structure of selected molecules (e.g., heat shock proteins [hsps], hsp-receptors [CD91], NK cell receptors [KIR, FcRs], non-classical class Ib molecules [XNCs]) and their functions in innate and adaptive immunity against tumors and viruses using the frog Xenopus laevis as animal model.