PhD student, Morgan Freney, focuses on understanding the structure of Japanese encephalitis virus, West Nile virus and other closely related mosquito-borne flaviviruses, to rationally develop new and improved vaccines and antibody therapeutics.
Using the chimeric flavivirus platform, Morgan has produced and compared these viruses at the molecular level and expanded our knowledge of cross-protective immunity between these viruses.
She has identified antibody targets for therapeutic development which will have important implications for vaccine design.