Chris Thomas, PhD
Research Assistant Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine
Phone: (919)-966-3661
Fax: (919)-966-6714
Email: cet@med.unc.edu
Division of Infectious Diseases
521 Burnett-Womack Clin. Sci. Blg., CB# 7030
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
Education
Ph. D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1996
Research Summary
Our long term goal, simply put, is "A vaccine for gonorrhea". Since normal gonococcal infection generates little or no natural immunity we are interested in developing and further defining what constitutes a protective immune response against Neisseria gonorrhoeae. To that end, we are applying novel combinations of antigens, adjuvants, and delivery mechanisms to generate radically different immune responses which can be evaluated for protection in a mouse model of infection. Some of the techniques we are evaluating including: recombinant protein, mucosal adjuvants, alternative delivery routes, DNA vaccines, and viral delivery systems.
