Advisory Board and Editors Infectious Diseases
Carine Van Lint
After performing her PhD thesis at the National Institutes of Health (NIH, Bethesda, USA) from 1991 to 1994 and a postdoctoral fellowship in New York from 1994 to 1997, Carine Van Lint joined the Faculty of Sciences of the "Université Libre de Bruxelles" as the head of the Laboratory of Molecular Virology. As a biochemist, Carine Van Lint has developed for the last 25 years a specific interest for pathogenic retroviruses. Her laboratory is mainly studying the role played by epigenetic modifications (such as histone acetylation, histone methylation and DNA methylation) and by non-epigenetic regulatory elements in transcriptional latency and reactivation of HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 - the ethiologic agent of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)), BLV (Bovine Leukemia Virus - the etiologic agent of a chronic lymphoproliferative disease termed enzootic bovine leucosis) and HTLV-1 (Human T-cell leukemia virus 1 - the etiologic agent of an aggressive lymphoproliferative disease (Adult T-cell Leukemia/Lymphoma) and a neurological degenerative syndrome (tropical spastic paraparesis/HTLV-1-associated myelopathy (TSP/HAM)).
Sheetal Verma
Dr. Sheetal Verma is an expert in the field of infectious disease immunology, and works primarily on host immune responses to Tuberculosis (TB). She has published extensively on characterization and validation of immuno-pathological pathways that modulate disease outcomes in TB.
In her current role, she is responsible for overseeing the implementation of scientific protocols and research operations at multiple international sites as part of the RePORT International Consortium. Dr. Verma works closely with the Data Management and Operations Center of RePORT International in coordinating cross-institutional regulatory processes, biorepository management and supervising assigned staff at international research laboratories.
She is a co-investigator on multiple NIH/NIAID grants and is a valued member of the Rutgers NJMS community, due to her skills in the practice and teaching of research in high containment Biosafety Level 3 Laboratories (BSL3). In this capacity, she leads training of new scientists in containment procedures, performing key experiments and designing applicable protocols for working with animal models.
Dr. Verma obtained her MS degree from Case Western Reserve University in 2010 and her PhD from Rutgers University - New Jersey Medical School in 2017.
Shailendra Kumar Verma
Dr. Shailendra Kumar Verma is currently a postdoctoral fellow at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, California, USA. He pursued his Ph.D. from Central Drug Research Institute, India in the field of vaccine immunology. Dr. Verma joined DRDE, and had been a scientist since 2005 to 2021. His major research area focused onto the vaccine and therapeutic development against infectious diseases. He has published more than 25 publications in peer reviewed journals of highly repute. Dr. Verma has more than 15 years of research experience in infection and immunology. His present research at La Jolla institute for Immunology is focused onto the vaccine/therapeutic development against SARS-CoV-2 and ZIKA virus.
Sandhya S Visweswariah
Professor in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and Indian Academy of Sciences. J.C. Bose National Research Fellow. Recipient of a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship and Astra-Zeneca Chair Professorship. Editorial Board Member of Tuberculosis, FEMS Microbiology Letters, Frontiers in Cellular Endocrinology, J Receptors and Signal Transduction, Physiology Reports
Shibiao Wan
Dr. Shibiao Wan is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy, and the Co-Director for the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (BISB) PhD Program at University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). He is also an Assistant Professor (courtesy) in the Department of Biostatistics at UNMC.
With more than 14 years of experience in machine learning, bioinformatics, and computational biology, Dr. Wan has published >50 articles in top-tiered journals such as Genome Research, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Circulation Research, Briefings in Bioinformatics, and Bioinformatics. Dr. Wan is the Editor-in-Chief for Current Proteomics, and an Editorial Board Member for a series of prestigious journals such as Briefings in Functional Genomics, Heliyon, BMC Bioinformatics, International Journal of Microbiology, PeerJ Computer Science, BioMed Research International, and Computational and Mathematical Methods, and a guest associate editor for multiple high-impact journals including Frontiers in Immunology, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, Frontiers in Pharmacology, Biology, Frontiers in Genetics, and Genes.
Dr Wan is a TPC member for >20 machine learning related international conferences including IEEE ICTAI. Dr. Wan is also a reviewer for >50 prestigious journals including Nature Methods, Nature Communications, Nature Computational Science, Nucleic Acids Research, Cancer Research, Genome Medicine, and Briefings in Bioinformatics. Dr. Wan has received a number of accolades including the New Investigator Award in 2024 by UNMC, the FIRST Award in 2023 by Nebraska EPSCoR, the Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2022 by HK PolyU as well as the 2025 Springer Nature Editor of Distinction Award by Springer Nature, and the Global Peer Review Awards (top 1%) in “Cross-Field” and “Biology and Biochemistry” in 2019 awarded by Clarivate. Dr. Wan is a member of AACR, ISCB and ACM and an IEEE Senior Member.
Katrine L Whiteson
Katrine Whiteson uses metagenomics, metabolomics, microbiology and ecological statistics to answer questions about how microbes and viruses affect human health. She studied Biochemistry at UC Berkeley (BA, 2000) and University of Chicago (PhD, 2007). During her PhD, Dr. Whiteson focused on the active site chemistry and DNA binding specificity of a site-specific recombinase from the class of proteins that enable the spread of antibiotic resistance genes. In 2008, she began a new job at the University of Geneva Hospitals with Dr. Jacques Schrenzel and Dr. Patrice Francois. This was an exciting era, just at the start of the Human Microbiome Project, for asking basic unanswered questions about the microbes and viruses inhabiting various niches of the human body. Dr. Whiteson focused on the oral microbial communities of healthy Europeans, and malnourished kids in Niger who develop a devastating facial gangrene known as noma. In 2011 she moved to Forest Rohwer’s lab at San Diego State, where she undertook breath and sputum metabolite analysis to better understand the activity of CF patient microbial communities from Dr. Doug Conrad’s Adult CF clinic at UCSD. Combining information about the genetic potential of a microbial community through DNA sequencing with the activity of the community by metabolite profiling is a powerful approach that Dr. Whiteson hopes to employ in future projects as she begins her own lab at University of California Irvine in Fall 2014.
Siouxsie Wiles
Dr Siouxsie Wiles MNZM studied medical microbiology at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a PhD in microbiology at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxford and Edinburgh Napier University. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Auckland. There she heads up the Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab where she and her team make nasty bacteria glow in the dark to find new antibiotics and to better understand how bacteria become more infectious. Siouxsie has won numerous awards for both her science and her science communication. In 2017 she published her first book, ‘Antibiotic resistance: the end of modern medicine?’ and in 2019 was appointed a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to microbiology and science communication. When the pandemic arrived, Siouxsie joined forces with Spinoff cartoonist Toby Morris to make the science of COVID-19 clear and understandable. Their award-winning graphics have been translated into multiple languages and adapted by various governments and organisations around the world. Siouxsie was the Supreme Winner of the Stuff Westpac 2020 Women of Influence Award, named by the BBC as one of their 100 influential women of 2020, and in 2021 was named Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year.
Joshua Wolf
Dr. Joshua Wolf, PhD, MBBS is an associate faculty member and clinical investigator at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital within the Department of Infectious Diseases.
His research interests include; Prediction, Prevention and Treatment of Infections in Immunocompromised Children, and the Management of Device-Associated Infections.
Harald zur Hausen
Professor emeritus of the University of Freiburg and the University of Heidelberg & the past Scientific Director of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. Awards include the Robert-Koch-Price; the Charles S. Mott Prize; the Paul-Ehrlich-Ludwig Darmstätter-Price; & the 2008 Nobel-Prize for Medicine. Past Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Cancer and former member of the Board of Directors of the International Union against Cancer (UICC).