Kamal Uddin Saikh

Kamal Uddin Saikh
Department of Immunology
Division of Molecular and Translation Sciences, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, USA

Biography

My scientific career started in 1978 as a graduate student. My research activities encompassed the understanding of the immune system not only because of its intrinsic importance to human health and disease, but also because the immune system has evolved and elaborate strategies for recognition, communication, and adaption. My research is primarily focused on basic to more translational research. My laboratory skills include most aspects of immunology, cell biology, molecular biology, and microbiology. My research background and training encompass many aspects of immunology, microbiology and virology. During my scientific career, I have published with my colleagues more 36 publications in peer reviewed journals mostly as a first author or senior author. Currently I am serving as a reviewer in several journals including J. Immunology, Journal of Leukocyte Biology and as an editorial board of Journal of clinical and Cellular immunology. Beside academic publications, I also published my research discoveries as patents and Book Chapter with my colleagues on staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) in the Text book of Military Medicine (in press). In addition to my academic experiences, I have also worked as a scientist at a pharmaceutical company (SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals). Over the last 20 years of my research as a PI at USAMRIID is primarily focused on basic to more translational research with a particular emphasis on the understanding of innate immunity, immune regulation, and cell signaling in the context of assessing human immune responses (ex vivo) to several mission-relevant experimental vaccines and the discovery of target based therapeutics against exposure to bio-threat agents for the U.S. Army. Currently, as a PI, I am working on the antiviral activity of a lead MyD88 inhibitor potential for broad-spectrum use which also demonstrated therapeutic efficacy against SEB intoxication. My other research activities include”vaccines directed Against Yersinia pestis” and “Correlates of Human Immunity with exposure to biothreat agents such as B. mallei and B. pseudomallei from an appropriate animal model of infection and immune response to recombinant F1-V vaccine against Y. pestis

Research Interest

Over the last 20 years my research as a PI at US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious diseases (USAMRIID) is primarily focused on basic to more translational research with a particular emphasis on the understanding of innate immunity, immune regulation, and cell signaling in the context of assessing human immune responses (ex vivo) to several mission-relevant experimental vaccines and the discovery of target based therapeutics against exposure to bio-threat agents for the U.S. Army. Currently, as a PI, I am working on the antiviral activity of a lead MyD88 inhibitor potential for broad-spectrum use which demonstrated therapeutic efficacy against SEB intoxication. Also as a key team member and PI, I am actively involved in research projects” vaccines directed Against Yersinia pestis” and “Correlates of Human Immunity” that is funded by JSTO. The specific aim in the projects is to develop assays for accurate measurement of immune responses and to establish useful correlations with disease biomarkers. Our proposed effort is to correlate human immune activation data (clinical samples) with data generated from animals exposed to B. mallei or B. pseudomallei from an appropriate animal model of infection and immune response to recombinant F1-V vaccine against Y. pestis. In the earlier part of last 20 years, I conducted research on the development of vaccine efficacy assays by analyzing in vitro and in vivo immune responses through characterization of pathogen-recognition receptors, antigen uptake, targeting and presentation by antigen-presenting cells, T-cell epitope mapping, and chemokine and cytokine induction. The Integrated Toxicology division has had a long awaited goal of developing toxin therapeutics. There are no small molecule therapeutics available for treating SEB intoxication. As a PI I have undertaken serious efforts and initiated a target based drug discovery approach. I was able to successfully prove my proposed hypothesis that MyD88 is a valid target for therapeutic intervention of SEB toxicity. My leadership led to the breakthrough of discovering lead small molecule therapeutics for treating SEB intoxication. This was achieved by applying a structure-based approach targeting MyD88 in a collaborative effort. In addition, to my own research projects, my laboratory has active collaboration with multiple investigators: The University of Strathclyde on “Small molecule analogues of the immunomodulatory protein ES-62 interaction with the adaptor protein MyD88; The University of Maryland at Baltimore on biochemical and biophysical characterization of small molecules and MyD88 interaction; The Taussig Cancer Institute on the effect of Myd88 inhibitor on edothethlial cell activation and with the Harvard Medical School (Dr. James Chodosh) on evaluation of MyD88 inhibitor on Adenovirus infection.