Dr. Jaisri Lingappa obtained a B.A. from Swarthmore College with Distinction, a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Harvard University, and an M.D. from the University of Massachusetts. Following an internship and residency in internal medicine, she did an infectious disease fellowship, all at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). Subsequently, she was a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF, where she developed a cell-free system for studying viral-host interactions in HIV-1 capsid assembly. She joined the faculty at the University of Washington in 1999 as an Assistant Professor in Pathobiology, and later moved to the Dept. of Global Health, where she is currently a Full Professor. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Disease in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Microbiology at the University of Washington. Dr. Lingappa is well known for her studies demonstrating that host enzymes are co-opted by viruses for the purpose of facilitating capsid assembly. In 2002, her lab reported in the journal Nature that a cellular ATPase, ABCE1, plays a critical role in assembly of the HIV-1 viral capsid. More recently, her group demonstrated that the cellular factor DDX6, an RNA helicase, is critical for HIV-1 capsid assembly. Her laboratory has also studied hepatitis C virus assembly, as well as restriction factors that inhibit virus assembly. She is the recipient of two teaching awards from the Dept. of Pathobiology in recognition of her teaching in graduate level courses. In 2012, as recognition of her overall contributions to the study of AIDS, she was awarded the Joe McKee International Red Ribbon Award during the AIDS Project Worcester’s 25th Anniversary in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Lab website: https://depts.washington.edu/jaisril/