URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Winter_2015_Melissa-McCarthy

Prevention through Vaccination Dengue Fever

by Holly Tran

Like many of his colleagues at research institutions, Dr. Alan Rothman, both physician and professor of cell and molecular biology, leads a double life that keeps one foot planted in academics and the other in ground-breaking discovery. Each year finds Rothman listed in the course offerings at University of Rhode Island (URI), where he teaches a junior level immunology course. Outside the classroom, Rothman can be found in the lab, mentoring students and pursuing immune responses to dengue virus. “The feeling that this research is taking us in new directions—it’s incredibly interesting, but also fulfilling,” he says. “You feel like you’re working on an important problem and it’s something

that people do care about worldwide.”

Rothman describes his connection to dengue research more through happenstance than by design. Following medical school, he completed his residency in internal medicine and applied for a research fellowship in infectious disease. In the following three years, he learned about the clinical aspects of infectious diseases immunology and immunological responses to dengue virus in mice. He also joined a collaborative effort with U.S. Army researchers in Bangkok, Thailand, that eventually set him on a path to becoming a partner of an internationally recognized biotechnology company and the recipient of an $11.4 million grant, the second-largest National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant URI has ever received.

The University of Rhode Island { momentum: Research & Innovation }

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