College of Veterinary Medicine

Education:

Ph.D, Microbiology, University of California, Davis, 1990

Honors and Awards:

The C. E. Corrnelius Young Investigator Award, 1998.
University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship Award 2004

Research Interests:

Molecular Biology of Retroviruses; Gene Therapy
My overall research interest is to develop novel antiviral therapy for immunodeficiency viruses. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has an extraordinary survival advantage, confounding existing therapies. With a short generation time, variable antigenicity, and a large number of infective virions, it is hardly surprising that despite the development of anti-viral pharmaceutical compounds, we have managed to only delay the onset of the fatal acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Novel antiviral therapy, specifically the insertion of genes which endow lymphohematopoietic cells with life-long protection against lentivirus infections offers a fresh approach to combating HIV infection. We are developing novel and efficient vectors based on a foamy virus to deliver the antiviral genes into relevant cells. Through these novel vectors and using animal models for AIDS we will be able to more rapidly determine the efficacy of gene therapy for treatment of HIV infection.

My laboratory is also interested in molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis by feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). FIV, a lentivirus of cats, causes an AIDS similar to that which is seen in humans' HIV. The clinical course of FIV infection parallels with that what is observed in HIV infection. Similar to HIV, the FIV genome contains several open reading frames (ORFs) in addition to genes encoding for the structural proteins. We are examining the role of one of the FIV genes (orf-A) in viral replication and pathogenesis

Selected Publications:

For Publications Extracted From Medline Click HERE

Park, J., Nadeau, P. E., and Mergia, A.  Activity of Tar in Inducible inhibition of HIV replication by foamy virus vector expressing siRNAs under the control of HIV LTR.  Virus Res.  140:112-120, 2009.

Novak, J. M., Crawford, P. C., Kolenda-Roberts, H. M., Johnson, C. M., Mergia. A. Viral gene expression and provirus load of Orf-A defective FIV in lymphoid tissues and lymphocyte subpopulations of neonatal cats during acute and chronic infections.  Virus Res. 130:110-120, 2007

Park, J. and Mergia, A. Simian Foamy viruses Type-1 Vectors. In Gene Transfer: Deliver and Expression of DNA and RNA.  T. Friedmann and J. Rossi, Ed, 2006, 99-105.

Park, J., Nadeau, P., Zucali, J.R.., Johnson, C. M., Mergia, A. Inhibition of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus by Foamy virus Vectors Expressing siRNAs. Virology, 343:275-282, 2005.

Johnson, CM., Gengozian, N. and Mergia, A. Hematopoiesis in the Feline Fetal Liver: An assessment by flow cytometry. Vet. Immuno. Immunopath. 99:53-62, 2004.

Park, J. , Nadeau, P. E., and Mergia, A. A Minimal Genome Simian Foamy Virus Type 1 (SFV-1) Vector System with Efficient Gene Transfer. Virology, 302:236-244, 2002.

Zucali, J. R., Ciccarone, T., Kelley, V., Johnson, C. M. and Mergia, A. Transduction of Umbilical Cord Blood CD 34+ NOD/SCID Repopulating Cells by Simian Foamy Virus Type 1 (SFV-1) Vector. Virology, 302:229-335, 2002.

Norway, R. M., Crawford, P. C., Johnson, C. M. and Mergia, A. Thymic lesions in cats infected with a pathogenic molecular clone or an ORF-A/2 deficient molecular clone of Feline Immunodeficiency Virus. J. Virol. 7513:5833-5841, 2001.

Mergia, A., Chari, S., Kolson, D. L., Goodenow, M. M., Ciccarone, T. The efficiency simian foamy virus vector type 1 (SFV-1) in nondividing cells and in human PBLs. Virology 2001, 280:243-252.